The blog title has nothing to do with the games we played - it was just a statement that came up at the end of the night after I noticed a Raffi CD on Shemp's table and commented that I used to listen to Raffi when I was a child. He said that he had it on loan from the library, then commented as quoted above. I can't remember the actual quote. He may have used harsher language; "Raffi can go %$@# himself" or similar. Shemp has very specific tastes in music. Apparently Shemp harbours no love for Raffi.
Anyhow, our fearless dictator Shemp decided on a "same as last week" agenda, so we played three games of Dominion: Intrigue and a game of Small World.
I ran away with the first game of Dominion, squeaked the win on the second, and was blown away on the third. We played a random deck in the first game, then used the rulebook-described deck "Secret Schemes" on the second and third.
There are certainly interlocking card combos which can become evident on repeated play. For example, the Swindler can be used to swindle players into losing a copper in exchange for a curse and the Trading Post can be used to cycle curses out of your hand to get silver back. The Minion can be very handy if you're finding your hand stacked with Victory cards.
All three games included the Saboteur, which I used to fairly good effect against the others in the first game, costing Shemp 12 VP and Luch around 6 VP. Consequently I won by a fair margin (54 or something vs. low 30s for the others).
I couldn't get my mojo working in the third and came up with my all time worst score in eight games - 9 VPs. I believe that Shemp won the third game using his newfound strategy of "ignore the shiny card combos".
Our game of Small World was very close. I drew the powerful combo of Alchemist Skeletons early, surprised that it had not been taken (Luch, going first, took Bivouacking Ghouls, and Shemp took some Sorceror combo). As the Alchemist power gives you two points every turn as long as you stay out of decline and the Skeleton race has one of the best staying power of all the races, I did quite well with them. Shemp and Luch were not idle, with Berserking Amazons making an appearance. Flying Orcs did their damage, as did Underground Tritons and Hill Wizards. I switched horses to Fortified Halflings mid-game, then finished with Wealthy Ratmen.
Final scores were 92 for me, 84 for Shemp and 82 to Luch.
I'm still amazed at how quick this game plays. Needs a bidding mechanic for first player, though, I think.
Showing posts with label Session. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Session. Show all posts
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Small Games that Feel Big (Small World, Dominion: Intrigue)
Despite the unfortunate absence of Bharmer and Agent Easy this week, we managed to make it together on a *gasp* Tuesday.
We played two of this year's hot ticket games - Small World and Dominion: Intrigue.
I don't have time to go into a full length rules summary and critique of either, but both games are quick and relatively easy to learn. The kerfuffle on BGG about ambiguous rules in Small World is overblown - the only major rule omission (in my opinion) was the definition of what order you place survivors of attacks (active player first, then left from there). The rest can be worked out with common sense, though the clarification document at BGG does help.
We played Dominion first. I was hoping it would catch on well with our group and by post-game discussion with Luch and Shemp, it's a hit. I was reflecting that it actually combines many of the addictive qualities of CCGs in an even more compressed time-frame - like getting a faster buzz from a drink or *ahem* "pharmaceutical". You get deck-building, deck-optimization, shuffling, card-collection, power-combos (frequently every turn) and a number of other aspects of already addictive CCGs like Magic and Jyhad all rolled into a single 30-40 minute package. It is like a crack version of Magic... can you can make concentrated crack out of crack? Meth? Whatever.
We played two games in two hours, including set-up and rules explanation. Future games should go even more quickly. Our first game was a little extended because although we could have ended it much earlier, no one was quite sure who was winning, so we kept playing a number of turns after somone could have ended it.
Having played Dominion (the "vanilla" base set, that is) on Saturday, it was fresh in my mind for comparison. Base Dominion is faster, but with less choices. Intrigue gives you more choices and more complex card interactions. Both are good on their own merits and it would definitely be good to own both.
A note on teaching Dominion - the suggested "Victory Dance" deck in the Intrigue rulebook is a good teaching deck. However you choose to teach Dominion, try to have a relatively non-punishing deck to teach with - preferably one without curses or too many agonizing decision cards.
The first game was very close: Luch 45 (or was it 47?), Shemp 43 and me with 41. I actually ended it thinking I was ahead. Shemp scored 15 points with Dukes (five duchies times three dukes).
The second game was less close: Luch 63, Kozure 37, Shemp 29. Luch ran away with it after striking the 8 treasure goal line early and snapping up six of the twelve provinces to my three.
Small World is a polished up and tricked-out version of the Vinci rules, (previously discussed) with a cute fantasy theme. I bought it mostly for my high school friends for when we get together monthly, since they tend to prefer conquest-y games. Iwas actually thinking the game would be denser than it turned out, but there's definitely strategy. The reinforcement die does add in a little randomizing spice. The components (as usual from a Days of Wonder published game) are gorgeous, the insert is 90% well done (the unit counter tray could have been done better, counters still flip over and get stuck in the bottom and are subsequently hard to dig out).
Gameplay is fun and quick. We got through rules explanation and a full three player game in 50 minutes. Not as much of a hit as Dominion, but still liked enough.
Both good games in my book - I'm sorry Bharmer and Agent Easy had to miss them.
Next time!
We played two of this year's hot ticket games - Small World and Dominion: Intrigue.
I don't have time to go into a full length rules summary and critique of either, but both games are quick and relatively easy to learn. The kerfuffle on BGG about ambiguous rules in Small World is overblown - the only major rule omission (in my opinion) was the definition of what order you place survivors of attacks (active player first, then left from there). The rest can be worked out with common sense, though the clarification document at BGG does help.
We played Dominion first. I was hoping it would catch on well with our group and by post-game discussion with Luch and Shemp, it's a hit. I was reflecting that it actually combines many of the addictive qualities of CCGs in an even more compressed time-frame - like getting a faster buzz from a drink or *ahem* "pharmaceutical". You get deck-building, deck-optimization, shuffling, card-collection, power-combos (frequently every turn) and a number of other aspects of already addictive CCGs like Magic and Jyhad all rolled into a single 30-40 minute package. It is like a crack version of Magic... can you can make concentrated crack out of crack? Meth? Whatever.
We played two games in two hours, including set-up and rules explanation. Future games should go even more quickly. Our first game was a little extended because although we could have ended it much earlier, no one was quite sure who was winning, so we kept playing a number of turns after somone could have ended it.
Having played Dominion (the "vanilla" base set, that is) on Saturday, it was fresh in my mind for comparison. Base Dominion is faster, but with less choices. Intrigue gives you more choices and more complex card interactions. Both are good on their own merits and it would definitely be good to own both.
A note on teaching Dominion - the suggested "Victory Dance" deck in the Intrigue rulebook is a good teaching deck. However you choose to teach Dominion, try to have a relatively non-punishing deck to teach with - preferably one without curses or too many agonizing decision cards.
The first game was very close: Luch 45 (or was it 47?), Shemp 43 and me with 41. I actually ended it thinking I was ahead. Shemp scored 15 points with Dukes (five duchies times three dukes).
The second game was less close: Luch 63, Kozure 37, Shemp 29. Luch ran away with it after striking the 8 treasure goal line early and snapping up six of the twelve provinces to my three.
Small World is a polished up and tricked-out version of the Vinci rules, (previously discussed) with a cute fantasy theme. I bought it mostly for my high school friends for when we get together monthly, since they tend to prefer conquest-y games. Iwas actually thinking the game would be denser than it turned out, but there's definitely strategy. The reinforcement die does add in a little randomizing spice. The components (as usual from a Days of Wonder published game) are gorgeous, the insert is 90% well done (the unit counter tray could have been done better, counters still flip over and get stuck in the bottom and are subsequently hard to dig out).
Gameplay is fun and quick. We got through rules explanation and a full three player game in 50 minutes. Not as much of a hit as Dominion, but still liked enough.
Both good games in my book - I'm sorry Bharmer and Agent Easy had to miss them.
Next time!
Friday, April 24, 2009
The Lighter Side of Rice Famines (Shogun)
I don't have a lot of time for a long post. We played Shogun, which we've played before a few times. Unfortunately Bharmer, the owner of the game, was a little delayed even for our delayed start time, so we didn't get underway until about quarter to 9. Since we had a late start, we opted for the "canned" (pre-set) start positions, chosing who was player A, B, C and D randomly.
The game was generally closer than most of our earlier runs, with the scoring round at the end of the first year resulting in everyone within about two points of each other.
I managed some lucky last-minute conquests in the second year, spreading myself dangerously thin, and the dice-tower gods smiled upon me, causing revolts in two heavily garrisoned provinces which were easily quelled and only one in a undermanned area (losing me the province). Unfortunately for Shemp, two of three revolts caused a province turnover and one of Luch's revolts cost him a castle. I finished with a fair (but not unsurmountable) lead over Bharmer, who was in second place and Luch and Shemp were not far behind.
A good game, with the usual strange results from the dice tower (one turn I attacked twice at fairly substantial odds in my favour and lost in both cases; doing the math, I had at least 6 cubes hung up in the tower). It does seem strange to be able to (potentially) time your attacks based on cubes you can see sitting in the dice tower tray. As an odds-smoothing mechanic, it is quite ingenious.
A good game, usually welcome at the table, but not one that I would typically pick. Something about the artwork bugs me at times, for some reason. I was happy in that this was one of the few times I recall winning, though. Looking back through our session histories, it's been won by a variety of people, so it is not necessarily, as we had suspected in the usual after-game kibbitzing, a game that Agent Easy usually wins.
The game was generally closer than most of our earlier runs, with the scoring round at the end of the first year resulting in everyone within about two points of each other.
I managed some lucky last-minute conquests in the second year, spreading myself dangerously thin, and the dice-tower gods smiled upon me, causing revolts in two heavily garrisoned provinces which were easily quelled and only one in a undermanned area (losing me the province). Unfortunately for Shemp, two of three revolts caused a province turnover and one of Luch's revolts cost him a castle. I finished with a fair (but not unsurmountable) lead over Bharmer, who was in second place and Luch and Shemp were not far behind.
A good game, with the usual strange results from the dice tower (one turn I attacked twice at fairly substantial odds in my favour and lost in both cases; doing the math, I had at least 6 cubes hung up in the tower). It does seem strange to be able to (potentially) time your attacks based on cubes you can see sitting in the dice tower tray. As an odds-smoothing mechanic, it is quite ingenious.
A good game, usually welcome at the table, but not one that I would typically pick. Something about the artwork bugs me at times, for some reason. I was happy in that this was one of the few times I recall winning, though. Looking back through our session histories, it's been won by a variety of people, so it is not necessarily, as we had suspected in the usual after-game kibbitzing, a game that Agent Easy usually wins.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Welcome to 2009 - CYLON!
Introduction
Herein lies a twisted tale of deception and surprise. Enter if you dare.
Third game of Galactica for me, Agent Easy and Luch, but Bharmer and Shemp weren’t around for the introduction in December. The three of us who have played before feel pretty comfy with the rule set and strategies, so after what I think is a pretty concise and clear rules explanation, we set up and begin a five player game.
First player is determined. It’s one of the new players, "Bharmer". He’s never seen the re-imagined show, though he’s familiar with the rag-tag fleet concept from the old one. He picks Gaius Baltar. I open my mouth to say something, but then I think - ‘this will probably make it more fun for him’, so I close it. Political leader category down. He stares at the picture of everyone’s least favourite ladykiller for a little bit and says - ‘he’s a pretty good looking guy. Sorta looks like me.’ Surprisingly, this is pretty accurate.
Next player, "Luch" takes Chief Tyrol. Good: safe and important support role is covered.
I ("Kozure") take Starbuck. I’ve previously played Apollo and Tigh, but I gravitate towards pilot types anyway and I figure we need one.
Next player takes Saul Tigh. "Shemp" hasn’t played before and has seen neither the old nor the re-imagined series. He asks whether the Battlestar and the Vipers are intentional Star Wars rip-offs or if it’s just a coincidence. I explain in as short a time I can the whole Star Wars - Battlestar Galactica - Star Trek: The Motion Picture relationship. Short story, yeah, they’re rip-offs. Curiously, he takes Tigh because "he looks like John McCain," which is funny because Shemp’s political views are almost diametrically opposed to McCain.
The choice of categories is pretty wide open for the final experienced player, "Agent Easy". I figure it would be best to take Roslin so that the newbie won’t have to make the political decisions, but I try not to influence people about their character choices unless there’s an obvious hole in our skill card set. There isn’t, really - we’ve got piloting covered with Starbuck, tactics with Starbuck and Tigh, engineering with Tyrol and Baltar, politics with Baltar and Tyrol, leadership with Tigh and Starbuck. We’re a little weak in politics and leadership, since Baltar is more likely to "go toaster", but I figure we can handle it. Agent Easy picks Sharon ‘Boomer’ Valerii. I’m a little surprised, since that makes for two people with higher chances of being the cylon, but whatever. Easy says he wants to try his hand at piloting, so I don’t argue.
Turn order, in case you’re keeping track, is: Baltar > Tyrol > Starbuck > Tigh > Boomer. I make a comment that the seating and character choices may end up being very problematic if Baltar and Boomer turn out to be the cylons.
Loyalty deck is shuffled and dealt. I’m a toaster. Frak me. Well, I’ve only been one once before, so this should be fun. Tigh is the Admiral. Baltar is President.
Skill cards are drawn, board is set. We’re good to go.
Act I - "Uh, I think we should jump now."
The first few turns are pretty typical. I jump into a viper to fight off the raiders doing my best to be a good little human. Unfortunately (or fortunately, from my point of view) the first three crises we draw are green-yellow, and we whiffle on them all, despite the fact that I’m actually contributing greens when I can so as not to draw suspicion. I’m doing a little mental happy dance that the pathetic survivors are getting pummelled so early on, but the skill card draws seem to show (inconclusively) that someone else is sabotaging. It could just be poor initial card draws as well, so I’m not convinced there’s another cylon yet.
We’ve lost morale and food, but we’re not doing horribly. A jammed assault puts more contacts on the Dradis, but we... er... the humans are holding their own despite the onslaught. We’re slowly advancing the jump track, a few more crises with a mixture of successes and failures. By the time we reach the -1 jump, there are a lot of raiders in the air as well as heavy raiders and both basestars. It’s starting to get hairy. Good... good.
It’s bad enough that there is general consensus we should try the early jump. I offer to throw in a card to add +2 to the die roll. The jumping player rolls an 8 so he would have made it anyway without my card helping. There’s the usual relieved sighs as the board is cleared. We jump to a deserted system (jump progress 2). Safe... or so the puny humans thought.
Act II - "Toga Party on Colonial One!"
After the jump, someone draws a Virus crisis, so we have a boarder. My turn’s up next. I say, truthfully, that the boarder is a threat but we should also get some CAP out there. There is grumbling around the table. I shrug and say "OK, I’ll hit the Armory, then." Unluckily, I roll a 7 and kill the cylon boarder. Frak. I figure that should throw some of the heat off me, though.
Everyone is suspecting Baltar quite a bit, mostly for some slightly odd behavior before the first jump. There’s a little suspicion on me, for reasons I can’t make out, since I’ve been almost choirboy-innocent for every action - I haven’t even tried to sabotage anything yet. A player turn or two later though, I actually screw up trying to sabotage a crisis check being conducted by Tigh that would probably make me stand out like a neon light if he had actually counted the cards he put in.
Tigh asks me about which cards I put in. I say I put in leadership cards. He says "card..s?" emphasizing the ‘s’. I realize in a heartbeat that I actually only put in one piloting card and the only other pilot, Boomer, has curiously abstained from the check after I threw in, but to correct myself would be doubly suspicious, so I say as earnestly as I can "yeah, two cards." There is a single piloting card as well as two other cards which sabotage the check. Tyrol had also abstained, so all of the leadership cards must have really come from Tigh or the destiny deck, and there were too many for all of them to be from the destiny deck.
I see a moment of suspicion flash over his face, but curiously he gathers up the cards and puts them in the discard without comment. The rest of that portion of the game is mostly quiet as players gather cards and scout, and the next jump happens without much incident. I use my Destiny ability to bury a pretty tough morale crisis (though I know there are worse coming, I don’t complain when a consensus is reached that we should do it anyway). We do lose a few points on morale and food, but population and fuel are where we’d expect. At one point, something happens, I can’t recall what, which tips suspicion on Baltar into the red, and he gets brigged. He makes some initial pathetic attempts to get out, but fails. The only thing that stands out in my mind is we failed a few times as a result of piloting cards that I didn’t put in, so I’m guessing that Boomer is the other cylon. At the same time, Tigh strangely jaunts over to Colonial One on the pretext that we’ve been doing poorly on Political checks, so he wants to pick up some cards there. Strange. Tigh is spending maybe one turn in three being drunk. He announces jokingly that there is a toga party on Colonial One. Another stand out is two Riot crises in a row, which is hard to cope with.
Act III - "Secret Cylon would be a good band name."
Coming out of the next jump into a cylon ambush (now making our jump progress 5) ["Thanks, Admiral," we chorus], I immediately want to get out into space again to fight my (fellow) Cylons to put on the best possible show of loyalty. The loyalty cards are dealt in the Sleeper Phase and Boomer is brigged per her character card (there is some confusion during the sleeper phase when I realize I put the sympathizer card in when I should not have. We resolve it by removing Tyrol’s revealed sympathizer card and giving him the remaining loyalty card).
I launch, but Tigh is after my turn and I note, out of the corner of my eye, that he and Boomer exchange glances for a moment as if agreeing on something. On Tigh's action, I’m brigged - it’s almost futile for Starbuck to try to avoid being brigged by Tigh, but I have to do something. No one helps me stay out. I guess I haven’t been convincing enough and Tigh and Boomer have decided I’m a toaster. Them being right doesn’t make it any less annoying.
Another cylon attack crisis. The Galactica takes damage but is quickly patched by Tyrol. Starbuck, Boomer and Baltar are in the brig. A launch raiders icon comes up in one Crisis, a second cylon attack in the next. The Galactica has a mass of contacts on her starboard front quarter - this is literally the most raiders, heavy raiders and cylons I've seen on the board, ever. Suddenly, Boomer reveals on the second turn of her internment and offs herself, popping up cackling on the Resurrection Ship.
With tonnes of raiders on the board and Cylon-Boomer puppeting them from the Cylon Fleet, things hit the fan quickly. We lose three Civvies in short order with only redshirt vipers out there - two of the Civilian ships turn out to be the double resource ones. We have three damaged vipers and one destroyed, the rest are in the air. Once again, I’m cackling internally, all the while playing the innocent injured party. Morale is at "2" - all the other dials except population are also in the red - 3s and 4s.
President Baltar finally manages to spring himself from the Brig using a combination of high skill cards and the card that reduces the target difficulty. Starbuck is the only one left in the brig.
Then we have a crisis check. I put in my card which would help the humans, just so that it would be apparent that I’m still innocent and would have time to put in the coup de grace at just the right moment. The revealed Cylon-Boomer has already spent a bunch of his skill cards in other crises, so he doesn’t spend any on this check. We should pass.
The cards are revealed. Three spoiler cards. Crisis failed. Sabotaged again.
I’m gob-smacked. I’m the only other possible cylon other than Boomer, but with the cards distribution as it turns out (I can’t remember the distribution or the participants), the only possible culprit is Tigh. I figure someone frakked up royally and played the wrong colour, but no-one owns up. I say nothing.
Finally, we get to a point where the next crisis will kill us if it hits morale, the fleet is being decimated and we’re nowhere near jumping. It’s my turn. I languish in jail, claiming to be unable to spring myself (entirely true, actually). Tigh’s turn the crisis card flips - it’s the one that is a -2 morale hit if failed. Somehow it gets around to me and I’m the only one who can help it succeed. Obviously I deep-six the check with a high off-suite card and the humans surrender due to morale being in the toilet.
I look up. There are five confused faces. I flip my loyalty card. Cylon...obviously. Boomer is already revealed, but dutifully shows two "you are human" and one cylon card. Baltar flips. Both human. Tyrol flips. Human. Tigh flips... Cylon.
I blink. There are one too many cylons.
I reach over and grab Tigh’s card. Yup. We read it right. Boomer’s card we saw earlier. Mine is right too.
Baltar says, in a wounded voice, "Uh, I thought there was only supposed to be two cylons."
I am baffled, "So did I," I say apologetically.
We never do figure out how it happened, but apparently I somehow shuffled an extra cylon card into the initial deal. This is especially baffling (and galling) to me because I thought I took extra care with preparing the Loyalty deck because the first four-player game we had with a different guest player-teacher, he accidentally left a cylon card out, and we were missing a cylon as a result.
Nonetheless, the evidence is there: I obviously frakked up the Loyalty deal somehow. Three of the five players had been cylons from the very start. The humans never had a chance.
Herein lies a twisted tale of deception and surprise. Enter if you dare.
Third game of Galactica for me, Agent Easy and Luch, but Bharmer and Shemp weren’t around for the introduction in December. The three of us who have played before feel pretty comfy with the rule set and strategies, so after what I think is a pretty concise and clear rules explanation, we set up and begin a five player game.
First player is determined. It’s one of the new players, "Bharmer". He’s never seen the re-imagined show, though he’s familiar with the rag-tag fleet concept from the old one. He picks Gaius Baltar. I open my mouth to say something, but then I think - ‘this will probably make it more fun for him’, so I close it. Political leader category down. He stares at the picture of everyone’s least favourite ladykiller for a little bit and says - ‘he’s a pretty good looking guy. Sorta looks like me.’ Surprisingly, this is pretty accurate.
Next player, "Luch" takes Chief Tyrol. Good: safe and important support role is covered.
I ("Kozure") take Starbuck. I’ve previously played Apollo and Tigh, but I gravitate towards pilot types anyway and I figure we need one.
Next player takes Saul Tigh. "Shemp" hasn’t played before and has seen neither the old nor the re-imagined series. He asks whether the Battlestar and the Vipers are intentional Star Wars rip-offs or if it’s just a coincidence. I explain in as short a time I can the whole Star Wars - Battlestar Galactica - Star Trek: The Motion Picture relationship. Short story, yeah, they’re rip-offs. Curiously, he takes Tigh because "he looks like John McCain," which is funny because Shemp’s political views are almost diametrically opposed to McCain.
The choice of categories is pretty wide open for the final experienced player, "Agent Easy". I figure it would be best to take Roslin so that the newbie won’t have to make the political decisions, but I try not to influence people about their character choices unless there’s an obvious hole in our skill card set. There isn’t, really - we’ve got piloting covered with Starbuck, tactics with Starbuck and Tigh, engineering with Tyrol and Baltar, politics with Baltar and Tyrol, leadership with Tigh and Starbuck. We’re a little weak in politics and leadership, since Baltar is more likely to "go toaster", but I figure we can handle it. Agent Easy picks Sharon ‘Boomer’ Valerii. I’m a little surprised, since that makes for two people with higher chances of being the cylon, but whatever. Easy says he wants to try his hand at piloting, so I don’t argue.
Turn order, in case you’re keeping track, is: Baltar > Tyrol > Starbuck > Tigh > Boomer. I make a comment that the seating and character choices may end up being very problematic if Baltar and Boomer turn out to be the cylons.
Loyalty deck is shuffled and dealt. I’m a toaster. Frak me. Well, I’ve only been one once before, so this should be fun. Tigh is the Admiral. Baltar is President.
Skill cards are drawn, board is set. We’re good to go.
Act I - "Uh, I think we should jump now."
The first few turns are pretty typical. I jump into a viper to fight off the raiders doing my best to be a good little human. Unfortunately (or fortunately, from my point of view) the first three crises we draw are green-yellow, and we whiffle on them all, despite the fact that I’m actually contributing greens when I can so as not to draw suspicion. I’m doing a little mental happy dance that the pathetic survivors are getting pummelled so early on, but the skill card draws seem to show (inconclusively) that someone else is sabotaging. It could just be poor initial card draws as well, so I’m not convinced there’s another cylon yet.
We’ve lost morale and food, but we’re not doing horribly. A jammed assault puts more contacts on the Dradis, but we... er... the humans are holding their own despite the onslaught. We’re slowly advancing the jump track, a few more crises with a mixture of successes and failures. By the time we reach the -1 jump, there are a lot of raiders in the air as well as heavy raiders and both basestars. It’s starting to get hairy. Good... good.
It’s bad enough that there is general consensus we should try the early jump. I offer to throw in a card to add +2 to the die roll. The jumping player rolls an 8 so he would have made it anyway without my card helping. There’s the usual relieved sighs as the board is cleared. We jump to a deserted system (jump progress 2). Safe... or so the puny humans thought.
Act II - "Toga Party on Colonial One!"
After the jump, someone draws a Virus crisis, so we have a boarder. My turn’s up next. I say, truthfully, that the boarder is a threat but we should also get some CAP out there. There is grumbling around the table. I shrug and say "OK, I’ll hit the Armory, then." Unluckily, I roll a 7 and kill the cylon boarder. Frak. I figure that should throw some of the heat off me, though.
Everyone is suspecting Baltar quite a bit, mostly for some slightly odd behavior before the first jump. There’s a little suspicion on me, for reasons I can’t make out, since I’ve been almost choirboy-innocent for every action - I haven’t even tried to sabotage anything yet. A player turn or two later though, I actually screw up trying to sabotage a crisis check being conducted by Tigh that would probably make me stand out like a neon light if he had actually counted the cards he put in.
Tigh asks me about which cards I put in. I say I put in leadership cards. He says "card..s?" emphasizing the ‘s’. I realize in a heartbeat that I actually only put in one piloting card and the only other pilot, Boomer, has curiously abstained from the check after I threw in, but to correct myself would be doubly suspicious, so I say as earnestly as I can "yeah, two cards." There is a single piloting card as well as two other cards which sabotage the check. Tyrol had also abstained, so all of the leadership cards must have really come from Tigh or the destiny deck, and there were too many for all of them to be from the destiny deck.
I see a moment of suspicion flash over his face, but curiously he gathers up the cards and puts them in the discard without comment. The rest of that portion of the game is mostly quiet as players gather cards and scout, and the next jump happens without much incident. I use my Destiny ability to bury a pretty tough morale crisis (though I know there are worse coming, I don’t complain when a consensus is reached that we should do it anyway). We do lose a few points on morale and food, but population and fuel are where we’d expect. At one point, something happens, I can’t recall what, which tips suspicion on Baltar into the red, and he gets brigged. He makes some initial pathetic attempts to get out, but fails. The only thing that stands out in my mind is we failed a few times as a result of piloting cards that I didn’t put in, so I’m guessing that Boomer is the other cylon. At the same time, Tigh strangely jaunts over to Colonial One on the pretext that we’ve been doing poorly on Political checks, so he wants to pick up some cards there. Strange. Tigh is spending maybe one turn in three being drunk. He announces jokingly that there is a toga party on Colonial One. Another stand out is two Riot crises in a row, which is hard to cope with.
Act III - "Secret Cylon would be a good band name."
Coming out of the next jump into a cylon ambush (now making our jump progress 5) ["Thanks, Admiral," we chorus], I immediately want to get out into space again to fight my (fellow) Cylons to put on the best possible show of loyalty. The loyalty cards are dealt in the Sleeper Phase and Boomer is brigged per her character card (there is some confusion during the sleeper phase when I realize I put the sympathizer card in when I should not have. We resolve it by removing Tyrol’s revealed sympathizer card and giving him the remaining loyalty card).
I launch, but Tigh is after my turn and I note, out of the corner of my eye, that he and Boomer exchange glances for a moment as if agreeing on something. On Tigh's action, I’m brigged - it’s almost futile for Starbuck to try to avoid being brigged by Tigh, but I have to do something. No one helps me stay out. I guess I haven’t been convincing enough and Tigh and Boomer have decided I’m a toaster. Them being right doesn’t make it any less annoying.
Another cylon attack crisis. The Galactica takes damage but is quickly patched by Tyrol. Starbuck, Boomer and Baltar are in the brig. A launch raiders icon comes up in one Crisis, a second cylon attack in the next. The Galactica has a mass of contacts on her starboard front quarter - this is literally the most raiders, heavy raiders and cylons I've seen on the board, ever. Suddenly, Boomer reveals on the second turn of her internment and offs herself, popping up cackling on the Resurrection Ship.
With tonnes of raiders on the board and Cylon-Boomer puppeting them from the Cylon Fleet, things hit the fan quickly. We lose three Civvies in short order with only redshirt vipers out there - two of the Civilian ships turn out to be the double resource ones. We have three damaged vipers and one destroyed, the rest are in the air. Once again, I’m cackling internally, all the while playing the innocent injured party. Morale is at "2" - all the other dials except population are also in the red - 3s and 4s.
President Baltar finally manages to spring himself from the Brig using a combination of high skill cards and the card that reduces the target difficulty. Starbuck is the only one left in the brig.
Then we have a crisis check. I put in my card which would help the humans, just so that it would be apparent that I’m still innocent and would have time to put in the coup de grace at just the right moment. The revealed Cylon-Boomer has already spent a bunch of his skill cards in other crises, so he doesn’t spend any on this check. We should pass.
The cards are revealed. Three spoiler cards. Crisis failed. Sabotaged again.
I’m gob-smacked. I’m the only other possible cylon other than Boomer, but with the cards distribution as it turns out (I can’t remember the distribution or the participants), the only possible culprit is Tigh. I figure someone frakked up royally and played the wrong colour, but no-one owns up. I say nothing.
Finally, we get to a point where the next crisis will kill us if it hits morale, the fleet is being decimated and we’re nowhere near jumping. It’s my turn. I languish in jail, claiming to be unable to spring myself (entirely true, actually). Tigh’s turn the crisis card flips - it’s the one that is a -2 morale hit if failed. Somehow it gets around to me and I’m the only one who can help it succeed. Obviously I deep-six the check with a high off-suite card and the humans surrender due to morale being in the toilet.
I look up. There are five confused faces. I flip my loyalty card. Cylon...obviously. Boomer is already revealed, but dutifully shows two "you are human" and one cylon card. Baltar flips. Both human. Tyrol flips. Human. Tigh flips... Cylon.
I blink. There are one too many cylons.
I reach over and grab Tigh’s card. Yup. We read it right. Boomer’s card we saw earlier. Mine is right too.
Baltar says, in a wounded voice, "Uh, I thought there was only supposed to be two cylons."
I am baffled, "So did I," I say apologetically.
We never do figure out how it happened, but apparently I somehow shuffled an extra cylon card into the initial deal. This is especially baffling (and galling) to me because I thought I took extra care with preparing the Loyalty deck because the first four-player game we had with a different guest player-teacher, he accidentally left a cylon card out, and we were missing a cylon as a result.
Nonetheless, the evidence is there: I obviously frakked up the Loyalty deal somehow. Three of the five players had been cylons from the very start. The humans never had a chance.
Labels:
Battlestar Galactica,
Five player,
Rule errors,
Session
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Best Laid Plans of Mice and CONAN (Imperial, Power Grid... sorta)
When speaking of analysis paralysis in boardgames, the compliment must be paid to Ouch that he is the one least frequently affected.
We have a term in our group for choosing actions/moves with a minimum of thought; to act on instinct and gut feeling rather than belaboured machinations:
The term we use is "Conan Brain" or "Conan Play".
Like the loinclothed, bulgy barbarian of Ron E. Howard's creation, Conan brain-based play is direct, straightforward and accomplished with a minimum of fuss. It is often helped by an egg-timer.
This week, Ouch (as dictator) declared that we would attempt to play two games at once with Conan brain-style play. The games he chose were Power Grid and Imperial. I'll pause a moment for all the alarmed gasps from hardcore hobby gamers to die down.
The WAGSters Code (currently unwritten) demands that we try as gamely (pun intended) as possible to follow the dictat of the dictator. So, we gamely set up both Power Grid and Imperial adjacent to each other on the same table and gave it a shot.
We abandoned the concept after one turn. Neither game lends itself well to long pauses between turns - Power Grid in particular requires player interaction from every player in every phase. Imperial is only somewhat better, given the nature of the investor card and keeping track of bonds. We decided that this concept of simultaneous play, while interesting as a thought exercise, might be better conducted in practice with games that are more suitable - games that have long periods of downtime while one player decides actions and the others are doing nothing.
The idea of simultaneous play is not without merit. Certainly it would give our brains a good work out. We should attempt it again in the future with games that are famous for downtime - Tikal, perhaps, maybe paired with multi-player wargame like Shogun or Conquest of the Empire.
In any case, we played a relatively rapid game of Imperial. I did my best to think with Conan Brain. I had originally planned to try a three power strategy of trying to get Germany, England and Russia, but somewhere along the line I lost any chance of England and ended up with a bumper crop of Austria-Hungary and Russia.
Using both nations together to split up the Balkans, Greece and Turkey guarantees a huge development base, and their position on the map allows for simple, one front wars, unlike Germany, which often gets sandwiched between France and Russia (occasionally Italy) .
I made one attempt at taking over England but was promptly slapped down, so I shrugged and gobbled up Russian and Austria-Hungarian bonds like they were hotcakes. Ouch and Shemp seemed content to steal countries from each other, so aside from a pre-emptive invasion of Northern Italy (which they both held bonds for), I did very little but build up my two empires and snatch small snacking portions (Sweden, North Sea, Baltic) from England and Germany when I could.
By the time they noticed that I had two powerhouse empires which weren't constantly attacking each other and made a play for higher bonds to wrest control from me, I had enough capital to buy 50%+ of the available bonds in both nations and cement my control. I then made threatening overtures toward Germany (I had no German bond) and Italy, which kept things hopping on my warfronts, while simultaneously taxing and building factories as often as possible.
Although I had pulled fairly far ahead in the endgame both Ouch and Shemp made a creditable effort to catch up. I think the final scores were 181 for Kozure, ~155 for Shemp and ~120 (?) for Ouch. I ended the game with Russian pegging the 25 power point x5 spot, with a lot of nations still languishing in the x2 range.
Strangely, this ended up being almost the opposite of my intended "three separated nations with a smattering of other investments strategy".
I'm liking Imperial more and more with each play. It may displace Power Grid and Tikal from my number 2 and 3 positions in my favourite Euro game rankings. I appreciate that the turn order is mutable but straightforward, and even the initial starting player is determined by bid. I also enjoy the limited wargame nature of the game combined with the economic aspect.
This also marked the first time I have destroyed a factory during an invasion of Italy. In this case, both my opponents several held bonds in Italy, while I only owned a 1 or a 2. As destruction of a factory can slow down the power point progress of a nation, it can be very useful to use against nations where you have no investment.
We have a term in our group for choosing actions/moves with a minimum of thought; to act on instinct and gut feeling rather than belaboured machinations:
The term we use is "Conan Brain" or "Conan Play".
Like the loinclothed, bulgy barbarian of Ron E. Howard's creation, Conan brain-based play is direct, straightforward and accomplished with a minimum of fuss. It is often helped by an egg-timer.
This week, Ouch (as dictator) declared that we would attempt to play two games at once with Conan brain-style play. The games he chose were Power Grid and Imperial. I'll pause a moment for all the alarmed gasps from hardcore hobby gamers to die down.
The WAGSters Code (currently unwritten) demands that we try as gamely (pun intended) as possible to follow the dictat of the dictator. So, we gamely set up both Power Grid and Imperial adjacent to each other on the same table and gave it a shot.
We abandoned the concept after one turn. Neither game lends itself well to long pauses between turns - Power Grid in particular requires player interaction from every player in every phase. Imperial is only somewhat better, given the nature of the investor card and keeping track of bonds. We decided that this concept of simultaneous play, while interesting as a thought exercise, might be better conducted in practice with games that are more suitable - games that have long periods of downtime while one player decides actions and the others are doing nothing.
The idea of simultaneous play is not without merit. Certainly it would give our brains a good work out. We should attempt it again in the future with games that are famous for downtime - Tikal, perhaps, maybe paired with multi-player wargame like Shogun or Conquest of the Empire.
In any case, we played a relatively rapid game of Imperial. I did my best to think with Conan Brain. I had originally planned to try a three power strategy of trying to get Germany, England and Russia, but somewhere along the line I lost any chance of England and ended up with a bumper crop of Austria-Hungary and Russia.
Using both nations together to split up the Balkans, Greece and Turkey guarantees a huge development base, and their position on the map allows for simple, one front wars, unlike Germany, which often gets sandwiched between France and Russia (occasionally Italy) .
I made one attempt at taking over England but was promptly slapped down, so I shrugged and gobbled up Russian and Austria-Hungarian bonds like they were hotcakes. Ouch and Shemp seemed content to steal countries from each other, so aside from a pre-emptive invasion of Northern Italy (which they both held bonds for), I did very little but build up my two empires and snatch small snacking portions (Sweden, North Sea, Baltic) from England and Germany when I could.
By the time they noticed that I had two powerhouse empires which weren't constantly attacking each other and made a play for higher bonds to wrest control from me, I had enough capital to buy 50%+ of the available bonds in both nations and cement my control. I then made threatening overtures toward Germany (I had no German bond) and Italy, which kept things hopping on my warfronts, while simultaneously taxing and building factories as often as possible.
Although I had pulled fairly far ahead in the endgame both Ouch and Shemp made a creditable effort to catch up. I think the final scores were 181 for Kozure, ~155 for Shemp and ~120 (?) for Ouch. I ended the game with Russian pegging the 25 power point x5 spot, with a lot of nations still languishing in the x2 range.
Strangely, this ended up being almost the opposite of my intended "three separated nations with a smattering of other investments strategy".
I'm liking Imperial more and more with each play. It may displace Power Grid and Tikal from my number 2 and 3 positions in my favourite Euro game rankings. I appreciate that the turn order is mutable but straightforward, and even the initial starting player is determined by bid. I also enjoy the limited wargame nature of the game combined with the economic aspect.
This also marked the first time I have destroyed a factory during an invasion of Italy. In this case, both my opponents several held bonds in Italy, while I only owned a 1 or a 2. As destruction of a factory can slow down the power point progress of a nation, it can be very useful to use against nations where you have no investment.
Labels:
Conan,
Egg Timers,
Imperial,
Novelty Play,
Power Grid,
Session,
Tikal
Thursday, September 11, 2008
On Winning (Glory to Rome, Agricola, Race for the Galaxy)
One thing that this blog doesn't really focus on is who wins and "winning strategies". I think that is largely due to the fact that we're a pretty laid-back group and it's not really the main intent of our play - that is, although we do our best and definitely are competitive, we're not aggressively (or ridiculously) so. I've read a lot of horror stories on BGG and even witnessed a few games playing with other people or groups where it was obvious that winning was the main goal of a particular player. I've seen people storm away from a gaming table; I've seen Paris Hilton-level pouts and sulks and seriously obnoxious rules-lawyers, know-it-alls and "gotta-wins".
Generally speaking, and in fact with probably 97% of boardgamers, they're nice, well-balanced people. That percentage may be a little lower with RPGers (not to knock RPGers, since I am one, but the weirdness factor definitely is a little higher in that social circle).
I do want to comment on what a pleasure it is to play with this gaming group. It's one of the highlights of my week and I always look forward to it, as much as a day or two beforehand. Agent Easy, Bharmer, our occasional visitor Jaywowzer, Ouch, and Shemp are all pleasant opponents and good friends.
That said, (and at the risk of sounding obnoxious) it does feel awfully good to win all three games in an game night. I guess the victory is somewhat sweeter knowing that you're up against decent opponents and often coming in a close second in some tight games the previous three evenings I've attended.
The first game of the evening was Glory to Rome, one of the triumvirate of similar card-based resource optimization games started by San Juan and continued by Race for the Galaxy. I like the theme and general mechanics of this game, but I still have trouble with the powers of some of the building cards, which occasionally seem unbalanced/overpowered or somewhat... I don't know the best word... arbitrary?
The Catacombs - for example. A card which ends the game at the whim of the builder? Or the Forum, which wins the game regardless of influence if you have one of each clientèle (not a difficult situation, with some combos - like the one which lets you perform a patron action for each influence on completion of the building). Another, whose name I've forgotten, lets you perform an action twice for each of your clientèle if you lead or follow an action. The Ludus Magna (allows client Merchants to act as any other occupation) in combination with a few Merchant clients can also be a killer combination. Similarly, the Temple, although difficult to build, can give an amazing advantage to a player (nine card hand!).
The game seems more interesting than San Juan, but simultaneously less balanced, so I'm not sure if one is better than the other as a game design. Given the choice, I'd still pick Glory to Rome, but San Juan is probably a "tighter" design. Glory to Rome also lacks one outstanding characteristic of its two brethren games, brevity.
Since I had missed out on vaulting materials in previous plays, I made sure I did so about mid-way through the game, instead of scrambling at the end. I also built a temple early on as my first building, which helped immensely when I did the thinker action. The combo of decent buildings with a lot of marble and brick in the vault put me well in the lead. It also helped that Jaywowzer was struggling a little with the rules, so his usually savvy play wasn't interfering with my nefarious plans.
Agricola is also a somewhat overlong game in which the deal of certain cards (occupations and minor improvements) singly or in combination can give a player a secret and fairly distinct advantage. This is a different criticism than the imbalance of individual cards which are available to everyone as in Glory to Rome. Inasmuch as that is true, you can still lose with poor play even with the best of card combinations. I think (though I must have at least ten or more plays of the basic game to be sure) that the best way to play this game would be to have a common pool of available occupations and minor improvements dealt at the beginning, with players using coloured markers to indicate which have been purchased. This way, each player has the same opportunity to use and benefit from the same occupations and minor improvements, and the replay value is retained through the cycling of cards (the family game, though interesting and good as a learning tool, does seem like it would become repetitive after a dozen plays).
I pursued my usual strategy of a balanced approach with a slight focus on planting/sowing. This time I did manage to get more animals earlier in the game, which helped with feeding my family and with end-game scoring. Once again, however, I lost out on a fifth family member and a five room house. I also have yet to upgrade to a stone house in this game. I had actually been trying for a build strategy this time around, since I had the master builder card in my hand, but it didn't pan out.
A nice combo appeared for me in the form of the berry picker, mushroom picker, and reed gatherer occupations plus the basket minor improvements. They are relatively short term gain occupations, but can make the difference between begging and not begging when grabbing a lot of wood.
I think a lot of what helped me to victory is managing a third family member early on. The number of extra actions helped me a lot.
As happy as I was with my play, I still only managed a very narrow victory over Agent Easy with 38 points. Easy was super-close with 37, as was Jaywowzer with 34 and Ouch managed one of his higher scores in the game, 24. Ouch did get some nice card combos initially (master baker, potato dibber, grocer(?) and something else) but didn't quite translate them into a higher score, unfortunately.
Race for the Galaxy continues to be one of my more enjoyed light euros. It's quick, competitive and well-themed. One drawback is that it is a less interactive game than Glory to Rome (while still being more interactive than San Juan) which does lend a sense of not really having to pay much attention to the gameplay of others. That's a dangerous habit to fall into, though, because failure to notice strategies, especially produce/consume timing, can make or break a winning bid.
I drew New Sparta, but had a dearth of hostile worlds, so I had to pursue a mixed economy strategy initially. Early play of the Interstellar Bank bankrolled a lot of later purchases and once I did start getting military power in combination with the usual New Galactic Order (I think that's the one, the one with VPs for military power), I was feeling good about my chances. Jaywowzer ended the game a little earlier than I expected, though, with the play of his twelfth tableau card. Ouch and I tied for VPs with 28 apiece, but I squeaked the win with one more card in hand and one more resource in my tableau. Jaywowzer was in the 24-26 range (I've forgotten) and I believe that Easy was in the 20-24 range.
So, I won Race for the Galaxy, but narrowly. Hat Trick... woo hoo! USA! USA! USA!
I'll be quiet now.
Generally speaking, and in fact with probably 97% of boardgamers, they're nice, well-balanced people. That percentage may be a little lower with RPGers (not to knock RPGers, since I am one, but the weirdness factor definitely is a little higher in that social circle).
I do want to comment on what a pleasure it is to play with this gaming group. It's one of the highlights of my week and I always look forward to it, as much as a day or two beforehand. Agent Easy, Bharmer, our occasional visitor Jaywowzer, Ouch, and Shemp are all pleasant opponents and good friends.
That said, (and at the risk of sounding obnoxious) it does feel awfully good to win all three games in an game night. I guess the victory is somewhat sweeter knowing that you're up against decent opponents and often coming in a close second in some tight games the previous three evenings I've attended.
The first game of the evening was Glory to Rome, one of the triumvirate of similar card-based resource optimization games started by San Juan and continued by Race for the Galaxy. I like the theme and general mechanics of this game, but I still have trouble with the powers of some of the building cards, which occasionally seem unbalanced/overpowered or somewhat... I don't know the best word... arbitrary?
The Catacombs - for example. A card which ends the game at the whim of the builder? Or the Forum, which wins the game regardless of influence if you have one of each clientèle (not a difficult situation, with some combos - like the one which lets you perform a patron action for each influence on completion of the building). Another, whose name I've forgotten, lets you perform an action twice for each of your clientèle if you lead or follow an action. The Ludus Magna (allows client Merchants to act as any other occupation) in combination with a few Merchant clients can also be a killer combination. Similarly, the Temple, although difficult to build, can give an amazing advantage to a player (nine card hand!).
The game seems more interesting than San Juan, but simultaneously less balanced, so I'm not sure if one is better than the other as a game design. Given the choice, I'd still pick Glory to Rome, but San Juan is probably a "tighter" design. Glory to Rome also lacks one outstanding characteristic of its two brethren games, brevity.
Since I had missed out on vaulting materials in previous plays, I made sure I did so about mid-way through the game, instead of scrambling at the end. I also built a temple early on as my first building, which helped immensely when I did the thinker action. The combo of decent buildings with a lot of marble and brick in the vault put me well in the lead. It also helped that Jaywowzer was struggling a little with the rules, so his usually savvy play wasn't interfering with my nefarious plans.
Agricola is also a somewhat overlong game in which the deal of certain cards (occupations and minor improvements) singly or in combination can give a player a secret and fairly distinct advantage. This is a different criticism than the imbalance of individual cards which are available to everyone as in Glory to Rome. Inasmuch as that is true, you can still lose with poor play even with the best of card combinations. I think (though I must have at least ten or more plays of the basic game to be sure) that the best way to play this game would be to have a common pool of available occupations and minor improvements dealt at the beginning, with players using coloured markers to indicate which have been purchased. This way, each player has the same opportunity to use and benefit from the same occupations and minor improvements, and the replay value is retained through the cycling of cards (the family game, though interesting and good as a learning tool, does seem like it would become repetitive after a dozen plays).
I pursued my usual strategy of a balanced approach with a slight focus on planting/sowing. This time I did manage to get more animals earlier in the game, which helped with feeding my family and with end-game scoring. Once again, however, I lost out on a fifth family member and a five room house. I also have yet to upgrade to a stone house in this game. I had actually been trying for a build strategy this time around, since I had the master builder card in my hand, but it didn't pan out.
A nice combo appeared for me in the form of the berry picker, mushroom picker, and reed gatherer occupations plus the basket minor improvements. They are relatively short term gain occupations, but can make the difference between begging and not begging when grabbing a lot of wood.
I think a lot of what helped me to victory is managing a third family member early on. The number of extra actions helped me a lot.
As happy as I was with my play, I still only managed a very narrow victory over Agent Easy with 38 points. Easy was super-close with 37, as was Jaywowzer with 34 and Ouch managed one of his higher scores in the game, 24. Ouch did get some nice card combos initially (master baker, potato dibber, grocer(?) and something else) but didn't quite translate them into a higher score, unfortunately.
Race for the Galaxy continues to be one of my more enjoyed light euros. It's quick, competitive and well-themed. One drawback is that it is a less interactive game than Glory to Rome (while still being more interactive than San Juan) which does lend a sense of not really having to pay much attention to the gameplay of others. That's a dangerous habit to fall into, though, because failure to notice strategies, especially produce/consume timing, can make or break a winning bid.
I drew New Sparta, but had a dearth of hostile worlds, so I had to pursue a mixed economy strategy initially. Early play of the Interstellar Bank bankrolled a lot of later purchases and once I did start getting military power in combination with the usual New Galactic Order (I think that's the one, the one with VPs for military power), I was feeling good about my chances. Jaywowzer ended the game a little earlier than I expected, though, with the play of his twelfth tableau card. Ouch and I tied for VPs with 28 apiece, but I squeaked the win with one more card in hand and one more resource in my tableau. Jaywowzer was in the 24-26 range (I've forgotten) and I believe that Easy was in the 20-24 range.
So, I won Race for the Galaxy, but narrowly. Hat Trick... woo hoo! USA! USA! USA!
I'll be quiet now.
Labels:
Agricola,
Glory to Rome,
Race for the Galaxy,
San Juan,
Session
Monday, August 18, 2008
Eleven O'Clock Shadow (Pillars of the Earth, In the Shadow of the Emperor)
In a satisfying Western Middle Ages-themed evening, we played two games new to the group: Pillars of the Earth and In the Shadow of the Emperor.
Pillars of the Earth is a game for 2-4 which evokes the trials and tribulations of building a late Romanesque/Early Gothic cathedral in 12th Century England.
Based on the novel by writer Ken Follett, players need not have read the source material to enjoy the game. I'll skip exacting details of the rules, but here's a general overview:
Players seem to be competing teams of craftsmen and workers trying to contribute most successfully to the construction of a cathedral. Turn order is determined initially by random selection.
Players then draft resource and craftsmen cards from a common market in turn order from the start player, which determines which craftsmen are hired (at a cost) and which resources their workers (labourers) will harvest in the upcoming turn.
Subsequent "round order" is determined by a fairly original blind draw method, which gives each player the option to select their action when their pawn is drawn from a bag by paying a set cost or passing. The cost decreases with each draw, each player having three pawns in the bag and selection (followed by payment or passing) continuing until all pawns of all players have accounted for an action. Players who pass on the opportunity to pay for an action select an action for the pawn much later in the round for no cost
The rest of the game is a sort of resource management and task optimization game - you need X number of Y type of material to get Z number of victory points - different craftsmen deliver different ratios of material (or gold) to VP (or occasionally gold) conversion. Other action/locations confer other benefits (gold for each worker at the Wool house, 1 or 2 VP at the Priory, skip random events at the Abbot's house, and so on).
After determining play order, the players conduct 17 (!) steps in each round - at each "stop" along the path, taking the actions in the order indicated by the placement of the pawns during the action draw mechanic. You resolve events, get paid, take VP, harvest resources, draw new craftsmen, gain temporary workers, sell or buy materials and convert said materials (as desired) into VPs, then determine the start player for the next round.
The game is fun and thematic but has a number of random elements which can significantly alter player success quite independently of their skill in playing the game. The pawn draw action order mechanic is the first heavily random element. Second is the material selection cards. Third is the craftsman cards, a fourth is privilege cards and the event cards also insert a considerable amount of luck to play. Now, I'm not against randomness on principal and in this case it seems to fit well with the theme, but it does get to be a little much. Balancing against the randomness (and in the designer's defence) you can select actions or use strategy to avoid being hurt drastically by either random events or the craftsmen/resource/privileges which you either receive or manage to miss. However, you cannot escape the fact that luck can be a major factor in your success or failure.
I like the look and general feel of the game. The round timer (a miniature, stylized wooden cathedral) is overdone but fun to use and gives a good sense of progress. Play is relatively quick (once you get the general concepts down) despite the drawn-out action selection process.
Overall, a decent game (if not something which grabbed me like Imperial did) with good production values and solid gameplay. Looking forward to additional plays.
From very random to not so random at all, In the Shadow of the Emperor is an area-influence game with some aspects of Way Out West, Intrige and a number of other area-influence games.
Players are powerful aristocratic families in Mediaeval Germany, vying for power and high political office in the Elector states of the Holy Roman Empire. One player is chosen at random as starting Emperor, but from that point onward, no randomness intrudes. Players place barons and knights into positions, and then have the option to conduct actions which move, negate, age, marry, promote (and so on) the barons and knights so as to achieve enough power in each of the three ecclesiastical states and four secular states to elect the emperor. Various machinations affect their positioning, along with an interesting mechanic for aging nobles, essentially putting a timer on how long you can hold onto power in each state.
The game suffers to some degree from a rulebook with some bad translations and oversights, but generally it's a challenging and very strategic game with a lot of direct player competition and intrigue. Some might criticize the clockwise-from-the-Emperor turn order mechanic, as seating position and initial Emperor selection can have a great effect on the outcome, but you can't complain about randomness in the game itself. Play continued past the 11:30 PM mark in order for us to be able to finish the game, but no one seemed anxious to abort the game early, which is always a promising sign.
Since the strategic depth is so great (and the gameplay mechanics relatively light) this is a game where multiple plays are possible and desirable for best appreciation. I hope this one gets that privilege.
In non-WAGS news but still game-related, I managed to get in a game of 1960: The Making of the President which is only two-player but worth mentioning. I had traded a few of my older and seldom-played wargames for 1960, which is an area influence game with a card-driven strategy mechanic and a wargame-y feel. Players take the roles of Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy in the American presidential election of 1960. It's sort of a re-themed version of the designer's earlier game, Twilight Struggle, but the games differ enough to be different games, while being similar enough to make transition from one to the other quite smooth.
I like Twilight Struggle more, of the two, but 1960 is no slouch either, and well worth owning, if only for its gorgeous production values, clear rules and concise player references.
Pillars of the Earth is a game for 2-4 which evokes the trials and tribulations of building a late Romanesque/Early Gothic cathedral in 12th Century England.
Based on the novel by writer Ken Follett, players need not have read the source material to enjoy the game. I'll skip exacting details of the rules, but here's a general overview:
Players seem to be competing teams of craftsmen and workers trying to contribute most successfully to the construction of a cathedral. Turn order is determined initially by random selection.
Players then draft resource and craftsmen cards from a common market in turn order from the start player, which determines which craftsmen are hired (at a cost) and which resources their workers (labourers) will harvest in the upcoming turn.
Subsequent "round order" is determined by a fairly original blind draw method, which gives each player the option to select their action when their pawn is drawn from a bag by paying a set cost or passing. The cost decreases with each draw, each player having three pawns in the bag and selection (followed by payment or passing) continuing until all pawns of all players have accounted for an action. Players who pass on the opportunity to pay for an action select an action for the pawn much later in the round for no cost
The rest of the game is a sort of resource management and task optimization game - you need X number of Y type of material to get Z number of victory points - different craftsmen deliver different ratios of material (or gold) to VP (or occasionally gold) conversion. Other action/locations confer other benefits (gold for each worker at the Wool house, 1 or 2 VP at the Priory, skip random events at the Abbot's house, and so on).
After determining play order, the players conduct 17 (!) steps in each round - at each "stop" along the path, taking the actions in the order indicated by the placement of the pawns during the action draw mechanic. You resolve events, get paid, take VP, harvest resources, draw new craftsmen, gain temporary workers, sell or buy materials and convert said materials (as desired) into VPs, then determine the start player for the next round.
The game is fun and thematic but has a number of random elements which can significantly alter player success quite independently of their skill in playing the game. The pawn draw action order mechanic is the first heavily random element. Second is the material selection cards. Third is the craftsman cards, a fourth is privilege cards and the event cards also insert a considerable amount of luck to play. Now, I'm not against randomness on principal and in this case it seems to fit well with the theme, but it does get to be a little much. Balancing against the randomness (and in the designer's defence) you can select actions or use strategy to avoid being hurt drastically by either random events or the craftsmen/resource/privileges which you either receive or manage to miss. However, you cannot escape the fact that luck can be a major factor in your success or failure.
I like the look and general feel of the game. The round timer (a miniature, stylized wooden cathedral) is overdone but fun to use and gives a good sense of progress. Play is relatively quick (once you get the general concepts down) despite the drawn-out action selection process.
Overall, a decent game (if not something which grabbed me like Imperial did) with good production values and solid gameplay. Looking forward to additional plays.
From very random to not so random at all, In the Shadow of the Emperor is an area-influence game with some aspects of Way Out West, Intrige and a number of other area-influence games.
Players are powerful aristocratic families in Mediaeval Germany, vying for power and high political office in the Elector states of the Holy Roman Empire. One player is chosen at random as starting Emperor, but from that point onward, no randomness intrudes. Players place barons and knights into positions, and then have the option to conduct actions which move, negate, age, marry, promote (and so on) the barons and knights so as to achieve enough power in each of the three ecclesiastical states and four secular states to elect the emperor. Various machinations affect their positioning, along with an interesting mechanic for aging nobles, essentially putting a timer on how long you can hold onto power in each state.
The game suffers to some degree from a rulebook with some bad translations and oversights, but generally it's a challenging and very strategic game with a lot of direct player competition and intrigue. Some might criticize the clockwise-from-the-Emperor turn order mechanic, as seating position and initial Emperor selection can have a great effect on the outcome, but you can't complain about randomness in the game itself. Play continued past the 11:30 PM mark in order for us to be able to finish the game, but no one seemed anxious to abort the game early, which is always a promising sign.
Since the strategic depth is so great (and the gameplay mechanics relatively light) this is a game where multiple plays are possible and desirable for best appreciation. I hope this one gets that privilege.
In non-WAGS news but still game-related, I managed to get in a game of 1960: The Making of the President which is only two-player but worth mentioning. I had traded a few of my older and seldom-played wargames for 1960, which is an area influence game with a card-driven strategy mechanic and a wargame-y feel. Players take the roles of Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy in the American presidential election of 1960. It's sort of a re-themed version of the designer's earlier game, Twilight Struggle, but the games differ enough to be different games, while being similar enough to make transition from one to the other quite smooth.
I like Twilight Struggle more, of the two, but 1960 is no slouch either, and well worth owning, if only for its gorgeous production values, clear rules and concise player references.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Cards, Cards, Cards
First games night at my new house was a bit of an understated affair; Bharmer arrived late, Agent Easy was taking care of his sick wife and Shemp Duchamp is still taking time off to be with his wife and newborn child. Ouch, however, managed to both find the new location and show up on time. No matter, we killed time by eating leisurely and watching "Bender's Big Score" - the first Futurama TV movie.
Since we didn't have a quorum until around 8:15 PM, the night got off to a late start. We played two games of Race for the Galaxy, followed by starting (and almost finishing) a game of Plunder.
I'm still enjoying RftG, despite its reputation as a sort of auto-pilot solitaire game among some detractors. I do think that it will benefit from the additional player interaction promised in the expansion. One of the things I enjoy about it is the double-think aspect of role card selection, combined with trying to time your scout/develop/produce/trade/consume phasing to give yourself maximum advantage and -ahem- "screwing" your opponent.
If you don't pay attention, there's definitely a sense of auto-pilot in the game, but the random card draw also sometimes forces you to adapt or wholly discard strategies, especially if you aren't drawing the cards you need. Alternatively, you can go for the "deep search" seven (or eight with some exploration modifier) draws to try to get exactly what you want.
For a quick playing and well-themed game, there's also a decent amount of strategy, I feel, so I quite like this one.
I won the first game with a military strategy for Alpha Centauri - 37 points. Bharmer took the second with a pretty descent market economy strategy and 35 points. I came in a close second with 33. Ouch is still getting used to the game and is consequently not scoring quite as high as the rest of us.
I dragged out Plunder for the third (and final) game of the night. I'm certain there's a decent game in there somewhere, and this - if I recall correctly - third or fourth session of this game seems to have gone fairly well. I did modify the starting set-up somewhat, adding two additional open sea cards NW and SE of Tortuga. After this play, I think that this is a average-decent game that needed one more pass to make it good. It's still the best Pirate themed game I own/know of, unfortunately, that doesn't really say much. My friend Captain Physics has acquired a copy of Blackbeard, but I think that level of semi-wargame complexity is probably beyond the realm of preference for this WAGS group.
A good night, if a little abbreviated. Also, we ate a lot of Japanese themed food - yakitori chicken skewers, miso-basted salmon, Japanese white rice and green beans, as well as yummy PC wasabi-honey rice chips.
Since we didn't have a quorum until around 8:15 PM, the night got off to a late start. We played two games of Race for the Galaxy, followed by starting (and almost finishing) a game of Plunder.
I'm still enjoying RftG, despite its reputation as a sort of auto-pilot solitaire game among some detractors. I do think that it will benefit from the additional player interaction promised in the expansion. One of the things I enjoy about it is the double-think aspect of role card selection, combined with trying to time your scout/develop/produce/trade/consume phasing to give yourself maximum advantage and -ahem- "screwing" your opponent.
If you don't pay attention, there's definitely a sense of auto-pilot in the game, but the random card draw also sometimes forces you to adapt or wholly discard strategies, especially if you aren't drawing the cards you need. Alternatively, you can go for the "deep search" seven (or eight with some exploration modifier) draws to try to get exactly what you want.
For a quick playing and well-themed game, there's also a decent amount of strategy, I feel, so I quite like this one.
I won the first game with a military strategy for Alpha Centauri - 37 points. Bharmer took the second with a pretty descent market economy strategy and 35 points. I came in a close second with 33. Ouch is still getting used to the game and is consequently not scoring quite as high as the rest of us.
I dragged out Plunder for the third (and final) game of the night. I'm certain there's a decent game in there somewhere, and this - if I recall correctly - third or fourth session of this game seems to have gone fairly well. I did modify the starting set-up somewhat, adding two additional open sea cards NW and SE of Tortuga. After this play, I think that this is a average-decent game that needed one more pass to make it good. It's still the best Pirate themed game I own/know of, unfortunately, that doesn't really say much. My friend Captain Physics has acquired a copy of Blackbeard, but I think that level of semi-wargame complexity is probably beyond the realm of preference for this WAGS group.
A good night, if a little abbreviated. Also, we ate a lot of Japanese themed food - yakitori chicken skewers, miso-basted salmon, Japanese white rice and green beans, as well as yummy PC wasabi-honey rice chips.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Beauty and the Beast (Shogun x 1 and Phoenicia x1)
Clever Production Design vs. Poor Production Design in Games
Phoenicia and Shogun were the games of choice this week. We've tentatively adopted a new format where we play one game from the previous week each week, so as to allow a better exploration of the strategic depth and other subtleties of the game.
Phoenicia on second playing has improved in terms of speed and smoothness of play, but, for me at least, some of the initial interest has worn off. Although it seemed intriguing at first, this system seems to suffer from a marked runaway-leader aspect, a sameness of play and a inevitability of a certain winner which I can't really see any remedy to without major rules changes.
As mentioned in the previous review, the person who leads each auction is the VP leader from the previous round; in case of tied high scores the first player marker (in this case called the Overseer) is passed to the closest tied player to the left of the current Overseer. The benefits of being the auctioneer are that if you have the money, (which you often will, if you are leading in production) you can buy what you need right away without much interference from the other players. Since you control the auction until you give it up, you can conceivable buy a number of low cost items all in your turn if one or two of the other players already have bought an item or are otherwise out of cards or coins.
If you are the last player, you can often buy the one (or choose from the cards remaining) and buy it at cost. However, at that point, your selection is usually so limited as to severely limit your tech path options.
If you get the right combination early and grab the VP lead, you can more or less race to the end and leave the other players wallowing in the 18-24 point range.
Then again, maybe my two wins were a fluke… I'm not certain. I recently read a criticism of Agricola (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/307192 )which, although I cannot comment on the accuracy of it in relation to Agricola, I can apply some of the same criticism of specific feelings about the game to Phoenicia here.
To quote the review:
"There is a whole class of games where the opening setup determines the likely winner. Card games. They have a few other characteristics (at least for good ones): 1) they are short, 2) you play many hands to reduce the luck (or determine the better player). Good players will win more than their ‘fair’ share of games, but won’t win every hand.
Agricola is a single deal card game that takes 90+ minutes to resolve."
…
A good game should take as long as required to determine the winner, and no longer. Bridge (a great game) would be farcical if you spent 30 minutes playing a hand. Agricola is chess between even players where you may be randomly up a knight or down a queen, but don’t know until halfway through the game."
In Phoenicia's case, although you aren't dealt a secret hand of cards for asymmetrical player ability purposes, once one player pulls away, it seems to have a definite snowball effect. The winner seems to be determined early. Add to this the fact that attempting to block another player's strategy by purchasing the card he/she most likely wants is often either impossible or not viable as a strategy. If you did, you'd most likely torpedo your own strategic path, so the prospect of blocking another player by spending your own much-needed resources to stop her/him from getting it is the gaming equivalent of suicide bombing: you may (or may not) stop your intended target, but you'll almost certain kill yourself in the process.
Given that the only direct player interaction is the auction and everything else is player mat optimization, you're left with a game where everyone is left doing their own thing. If you buy the right card combo (often by virtue of where you're sitting for the first auction) early on, you win by snowball effect and the outcome seems pretty fixed. Though I do think I made some savvy choices early on, and shifted production strategy (from improved hunting to improved mining) at the right time to maximize my returns, it really didn't feel tense after the third or fourth round. Once I had money coming in, it wasn't much of a stretch to get more.
Specifically, getting the tracker allows improved hunting, which is a pretty cheap production path for points and production, (tools 2 vs. farming 5) and also affords reduction on the caravan, which is a great boost for points and production. I then gunned for the shipyards (and bid high), which gave me increased hand size, VPs, production and discounts on future improvements. Moving from there to Fort, Smelter, Shipping Fleet and City Walls just sealed the deal.
Easy's observation that the second and third seat players seem to have a definite disadvantage in the auction set-up also seems quite accurate.
Combined with the well-documented graphic design problems (shared VP/production track, poor iconography, low visibility for some critical icons and values) and poor rules-as-written ruleset, this makes for some very difficult obstacles for the enjoyment of the game. However, and this is a big however, it still seems worth playing again for some reason, at least one more time. Faint praise, but one feels like playing Phoenicia because it's a simple, relatively quick playing civilization game with some modicum of theme and tech development - not overlong like the sprawling Civilization or Through the Ages games, but not overly abstracted like Vinci or Tempus. At the same time, it's not a very good quick medium-lightweight civ game, it's just that there's not many successful ones out there. Even Antike, which is in my mind one of the more successful medium-weight civ games, is quite long by comparison.
Does Phoenicia just boil down to a straightforward auction game with tech tree and resource optimization? Pretty much, but it's quick. It lacks other components which (to me) are important to a successful-feeling civ game - exploration/discovery and direct competition. Plus, the art and iconography are mediocre at best, and confusing at worst.
Compared with Phoenicia's graphic layout, Shogun seems positively sparkling. Cleverly thought out balancing factors and a number of very interesting mechanics - cube tower, turn planning, bluff, hidden auction, etc. - remind one what a well thought through system can feel like by comparison to one which feels both graphically and mechanically unpolished. In Phoenicia's defence, Shogun has had one previous incarnation (as Wallenstein) to work out kinks, so it's like comparing a concept car to the fifth or sixth year version/model of a proven car design. The polish of Shogun's art and design definitely makes this the "beauty" of this pairing of beauty and beast.
Shogun balances powerbase-type strategies by awarding points for building types spread across several regions, allowing for players with scattered region cards to benefit. The cube tower also mitigates randomness in attacks and defense that might otherwise result from dice or table-based combat. Overall it is a nicely balanced game, but it still fails to engage me on some level - there isn't much "movement", if you know what I mean.
Last night's game has also underscored for me the concept that it's often better to focus taxation/rice unrest markers in one well garrisoned province rather than trying to spread your forces thin to quell potential unrest across your holdings (the old "You can't make all of the people happy all of the time," maxim). It also reminded me of the possible combination punches of getting reinforce, move and attack orders during a turn.
This game was much closer, and it was near to impossible to predict the winner. It feels like you're more in control, but there is much less movement. One minor criticism I have of this game is that it seems to end just as you're getting going - despite the fact that "getting going" has required 90 minutes already.
I like Shogun, but it remains a game that I don't really look forward to playing when it's selected. I don't dread it, or groan when it's mentioned, but it's still not something that I look forward to playing, like Railroad Tycoon or many of my other highly rated games. I did enjoy this game, as it was pretty close and required attention and careful strategy, but perhaps for the lack of dynamic movement that I previously mentioned, it's never quite as exciting as some other of my favourite games - it lacks as many highs and lows.
One day we'll find a civ game and a waro (weuro) that I like. For now, the search continues.
Labels:
Antike,
Civilization,
phoenicia,
Session,
Shogun,
Through the Ages,
Vinci
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Conan the ...Eurogamer (?)
"Between the time when the first game of Chess was played, and the rise of the sons of Caylus, there was an age undreamed of. And unto this, Conan, destined to wear the jeweled crown of Essen upon a troubled brow. It is I, his chronicler, who alone can tell thee of his saga. Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!"Ouch suggested we throw off the burden of heavy thinking and play using only our Conan-brain - quick and intuitive play without deep strategy. Amid much thick Austrian accents and exhortations to "get out of the tunnel, it's not safe," we completed a full game of Power Grid in just over one hour last night. Conan-thinking!
Interestingly, despite the low-brow intent we played a relatively close game of Ticket to Ride - Shemp and Ouch tied at 101 (I trickled in at 80 with a poor mid-late-game ticket draw unfulfilled, Hilaria - something less... she elected not to count, I believe) - it came down to destination tickets filled - of which Shemp had more.
Power Grid was a lop-sided win for Shemp. I did my initial placement poorly (grabbing easy early connections rather than going for long-term strategy) and then Ouch was persuaded to blockade me rather than go for a more long-term strategy himself. Consequently, Shemp had the western half (we played with the top three regions of Germany) all to himself for most of the game. He earned it, but we helped by playing poorly.
"He did not care any more... life and death... the same. Only that the crowd would be there to greet him with howls of lust and fury. He began to realize his sense of worth... he mattered. In time, his victories could not easily be counted... he was taken to the east, a great prize, where the war gamers would teach him the deepest secrets. Language and writing were also made available, the designs of Knizia, the philosophy of Ulrich and Kramer.. But, always, there remained the discipline of dice."Oh, I finally won a game of Trans Europa! Wooooooo! Apparently all I have to do to do well at games is to say "This is the time I will not suck at playing X." Power of positive thinking! (gag)
We played Carcasonne stupid-fast. It was... interesting. Any faster and it would have been pointless-fast. The layout was a mess.
Ticket to Ride (~0:50) [Shemp 101, Ouch 101, Kozure 80, Hilaria >80), Power Grid (~1:10) [Shemp 17, Ouch, 14, Kozure 11 - not even close] , Trans Europa (0:35) [Kozure 1, Shemp & Ouch - 14+] and Carcassonne (0:20) [Ouch (by a wide margin), Kozure, Shemp (scores not fully calculated after Ouch was shown to be easily the winner)], all after a 7:45 PM start time. Not bad, eh?
"So, did Conan travel to all his destinations in America, power the grid of Germania, connect the cities of Europa and lay waste to the fields of Carcasonne. And having no further concern, he and his companions sought adventure in the West. Many wargames and euros did Conan play. Honor and fear were heaped upon his name and, in time, he became a king by his own hand... And this story shall also be told."
Labels:
Carcassonne,
Conan,
Power Grid,
Session,
Three player,
Ticket To Ride,
TransEuropa
Friday, September 07, 2007
OK, Maybe I Don't Loathe El Grande as Much as I Used to.
"Don't call it a comeback
I been here for years"
LL Cool J, "Mama Said Knock You Out"
For about a year and a half, my feelings toward El Grande have been somewhat ambivalent. I said on Wednesday night that the way I feel about playing El Grande is probably the way that bands like Taco, Soft Cell or Thomas Dolby feel about the 1980s; it's something that I was good at once but haven't had a hit with for years and would likely never have again.
Never say never.
Celebrating the triumphant return of Shemp, we played an oldie but goodie, the third true Euro introduced to the group after I brought Puerto Rico and Settlers of Catan one fateful weekend, El Grande.
As I alluded to earlier, once I was quite good at this game. I applied my personal experience with strategic wargames, building up powerbases and defending them tenaciously. For about three or four straight gaming sessions of this (and we didn't play it all that often), I was winning consistently and by a fair margin. It was... glorious.
Then it went downhill. My fellow gamers cottoned onto the fact that the game isn't about (well not entirely about) powerbases, and a fluid/dynamic style of play would more often be rewarded with victory. Slowly I slipped down the VP tree, eventually reaching my usual spot of fourth or fifth out of five players, often by quite a wide margin from the first place player. There I have remained for the better part of two years or so, never really managing higher than a third place finish. While I appreciate the skill and challenge of the game, I haven't really enjoyed it very much during most of that period.
Wednesday night, all that changed.
I've abandoned my previous, methodical approach, to adopt what I call the "smash and grab" approach. Most of my bids and moves are aimed at grabbing quick points and spreading my caballeros across the board (but not too thinly) so that all of my resources aren't tied up in the aforementioned powerbases. I defend my Grande, of course, but I also know when to cut losses and either shift the Grande or otherwise abandon it's extra two points to concentrate elsewhere.
Special scoring, mobile scoreboards, and tower scoring are important to this approach. A careful watch on the VP track is also important, as your moves must be geared to giving the least aid to the leader(s) while giving the most to yourself or lower score players.
I'm still no El Grande "Grande", but I've finally pulled myself out of the doldrums of fifth place finishes. Last night's game was very close, with 2-3 points separating each place, and a total of 7 points (I believe) separating the first place player from the last.
Our second game of the evening, Theophrastus was also very close. I came in first with 60 or 61 points, the last place player was 54 (?) - not much wiggle room there. The game is quite different but equally enjoyable with two, three or four players - more strategic with two, much more back-stabby and rapid with four. As I commented last session we played this, Theophrastus has a lot of rules which are easy to forget - for example, in the so-called "scoring round" (which is actually a limited play round before scoring occurs), you are not permitted to discredit other students' or Theophrastus' work, or change any aspect of Theophrastus' formula. In the heat of alchemical battle, this is easy to forget.
Still a very enjoyable game with a lot of opportunity for optimization as well as player interaction. Solid without being stellar.
I believe our generous host Shemp snapped some pics of the VP tracks to commemorate the closeness of the games. I'd also like to thank Shemp for hosting and welcome him back after a long summer hiatus.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Terakh, Tikal and Tan Tuan...er... San Juan
Or, "How Bharmer Kicked our Behinds Repeatedly"
First up was Terakh, the light strategy game with a fantasy/magic theme. I enjoy this game for its combination of chess-like strategy with a few wargame-y aspects like attack and defence modifiers, asymmetrical player powers and to-hit rolls. The designers have done a good job of finding the right balance between simplicity and theme for a game of this size and intended investment of time.
I came out swinging and dealt some pretty good hits quite early, eventually knocking both Ouch and Bharmer down to 2 and 1 points respectively (with a little help from Ouch), remaining at 3 points myself. Bharmer was in a tight spot, sandwiched between the two of us (an unfortunate but common occurrence when you're the third player to place in a three player game) and was attacked from both sides. I was feeling pretty satisfied with myself, but then Bharmer laid both Jason and I low with two successive Plague (?) cards, which reduce all Elders by one point unless they are already at one point or on a purple tria. Then the Terakh Crisis hit, which promptly killed Ouch and I, leaving Bharmer standing. So, after about 50 minutes of play, the game winner was decided by a dice roll. Normally, not my ideal ending, but a fun game and all the more impressive to see Bharmer win after being knocked down so thoroughly earlier in the game.
Tikal followed. For the first time in about a half-dozen or more plays, I think we actually managed to remember to place a new hex tile at the beginning of each player's turn, rather than forgetting and placing it afterwards, or not placing one at all, or remembering a turn or two later. This simple rules error has been the bane of our Tikal-playing careers, for some reason, we never got into the solid habit of remembering to do it at the right time.
So, this time we really cracked down on each other, heaping scorn on people who forgot.
Despite this revolutionary advance in gameplay, Bharmer pulled away early on and remained in the lead for the rest of the game. He grabbed at least two three-sets and three (or more) two-sets of treasure by the end (something like that, I can't remember), having scored between 12 and 21 points on treasure alone almost every scoring round but the first. I fell behind initially but eventually regained a little ground with treasure and careful positioning, though in the end it wasn't enough. Bharmer scored somewhere in the 110-115 range, I scored in the 85-90 range, and I think Ouch was 70-75 range. My personal mistakes here were failing to block Bharmer as often as I was able to block Ouch, and not getting in position to take treasures first before Bharmer. Our Tikal games are typically closer than this, so this substantial victory by Bharmer was pretty embarassing for both Ouch and I. Bharmer was helped substantially by placing almost every treasure site save one (as I recall), so luck of the draw did enter into it, but not to detract from his victory; he did play quite well.
At this point, Ouch had to leave, claiming the need to retire early.
With only about half an hour left in the evening, we turned to the only short two player we had on hand, San Juan.
What a shambles. Bharmer thoroughly trounced me, scoring something like 48 to my measly 21. I was completely outclassed in every category, failing to build even a single 6 building.
In my defence, I never actually drew a six-building to begin with, but I still played horribly. I missed several opportunities to build silver mines due to bad planning, and invested too many cards in the chapel before I had cards to spare. I was beaten by Bharmer's good play and my own poor judgement and timing.
I build a coffee roaster early, but my second build, a black market, and third build, the archive, were poorly chosen. I added stupidity to mismanagement by building a chapel fourth. I did have some poor draws, but this was a hole of my own digging. I had built all of seven (eight?) buildings when Bharmer plunked down his twelfth. Bharmer did well with the production building + guild hall combo, and also managed some other 6-point building bonuses, including a bunch from his palace.
I limped to the finish line, my only uncertainty about the victor being whether he doubled or tripled my score in the end.
This remains a decent game, and very elegant in its size, playing time and complexity. I remain somewhat leary of the problem like mine; once you fall behind you are almost certainly doomed against any player of competence - and it is not terribly difficult to fall behind due to bad early draws. Still, I deserved to lose that one.
And that, my fellow WAGSters, is why I vote that Bharmer not be allowed to play any more.
Just kidding. Mostly. Well... sorta.
Die Bharmer, die!
First up was Terakh, the light strategy game with a fantasy/magic theme. I enjoy this game for its combination of chess-like strategy with a few wargame-y aspects like attack and defence modifiers, asymmetrical player powers and to-hit rolls. The designers have done a good job of finding the right balance between simplicity and theme for a game of this size and intended investment of time.
I came out swinging and dealt some pretty good hits quite early, eventually knocking both Ouch and Bharmer down to 2 and 1 points respectively (with a little help from Ouch), remaining at 3 points myself. Bharmer was in a tight spot, sandwiched between the two of us (an unfortunate but common occurrence when you're the third player to place in a three player game) and was attacked from both sides. I was feeling pretty satisfied with myself, but then Bharmer laid both Jason and I low with two successive Plague (?) cards, which reduce all Elders by one point unless they are already at one point or on a purple tria. Then the Terakh Crisis hit, which promptly killed Ouch and I, leaving Bharmer standing. So, after about 50 minutes of play, the game winner was decided by a dice roll. Normally, not my ideal ending, but a fun game and all the more impressive to see Bharmer win after being knocked down so thoroughly earlier in the game.
Tikal followed. For the first time in about a half-dozen or more plays, I think we actually managed to remember to place a new hex tile at the beginning of each player's turn, rather than forgetting and placing it afterwards, or not placing one at all, or remembering a turn or two later. This simple rules error has been the bane of our Tikal-playing careers, for some reason, we never got into the solid habit of remembering to do it at the right time.
So, this time we really cracked down on each other, heaping scorn on people who forgot.
Despite this revolutionary advance in gameplay, Bharmer pulled away early on and remained in the lead for the rest of the game. He grabbed at least two three-sets and three (or more) two-sets of treasure by the end (something like that, I can't remember), having scored between 12 and 21 points on treasure alone almost every scoring round but the first. I fell behind initially but eventually regained a little ground with treasure and careful positioning, though in the end it wasn't enough. Bharmer scored somewhere in the 110-115 range, I scored in the 85-90 range, and I think Ouch was 70-75 range. My personal mistakes here were failing to block Bharmer as often as I was able to block Ouch, and not getting in position to take treasures first before Bharmer. Our Tikal games are typically closer than this, so this substantial victory by Bharmer was pretty embarassing for both Ouch and I. Bharmer was helped substantially by placing almost every treasure site save one (as I recall), so luck of the draw did enter into it, but not to detract from his victory; he did play quite well.
At this point, Ouch had to leave, claiming the need to retire early.
With only about half an hour left in the evening, we turned to the only short two player we had on hand, San Juan.
What a shambles. Bharmer thoroughly trounced me, scoring something like 48 to my measly 21. I was completely outclassed in every category, failing to build even a single 6 building.
In my defence, I never actually drew a six-building to begin with, but I still played horribly. I missed several opportunities to build silver mines due to bad planning, and invested too many cards in the chapel before I had cards to spare. I was beaten by Bharmer's good play and my own poor judgement and timing.
I build a coffee roaster early, but my second build, a black market, and third build, the archive, were poorly chosen. I added stupidity to mismanagement by building a chapel fourth. I did have some poor draws, but this was a hole of my own digging. I had built all of seven (eight?) buildings when Bharmer plunked down his twelfth. Bharmer did well with the production building + guild hall combo, and also managed some other 6-point building bonuses, including a bunch from his palace.
I limped to the finish line, my only uncertainty about the victor being whether he doubled or tripled my score in the end.
This remains a decent game, and very elegant in its size, playing time and complexity. I remain somewhat leary of the problem like mine; once you fall behind you are almost certainly doomed against any player of competence - and it is not terribly difficult to fall behind due to bad early draws. Still, I deserved to lose that one.
And that, my fellow WAGSters, is why I vote that Bharmer not be allowed to play any more.
Just kidding. Mostly. Well... sorta.
Die Bharmer, die!
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Note: Play this More Often than Once a Year...
Vampire: Prince of the City.
Last time we had this out (according to the blog) was March 9th, 2006. Strangely, almost exactly a year ago. Somehow I thought it had been longer. I guess we've just gone through a lot of games since.
As before, we (well, I) made some rules errors. The rulebook, as atmospheric as it is, is poorly phrased and organized in many cases, which makes for quick location of critical rules difficult.
Concerning Re-rolls: Any card or ability which specifies re-rolls allows re-roll of any dice involved in the challenge or contest, not just those belonging to the player. This is covered under the heading "Dice" in section 3.6. This may have made a difference in Shemp's strategy at one point.
Torpor arising from Resolution Phase loss: Agent Easy was sent into torpor in the last turn of this game because he only had one vitae remaining. This is incorrect... the vitae is lost if the game continues. (section 5.5 - Resolution Phase). This is my error in reading the rules. Fortunately, it would not have made a major difference for this game (though it would permit Easy to place second instead of fourth). It did make a major difference in our first game, so we should definitely remember this.
Where to draw from: For some reason, I told people in this game we drew from the bottom of the deck. I must have confused this game with another, because no where in the rules does it mention this. I can't recall the game where you draw from the bottom, but I know it happens somewhere. In this game, you draw from the top, and put event cards into play as they come up.
Cards in play cannot be put back into the hand. During the game, I lost two zones (harbor and mercantile district) which made it impossible for me to maintain my Labor Union Domain. Thinking it was legal, during my next Resource Phase, I put the Labor Union Domain card back into my hidden hand. This is illegal. Cards must be discarded outright or otherwise lost - they cannot be put back into the hand in normal rules. I used this card later for its one point value which enabled a event to be beaten (the one where Shemp and I were working together) so this had a moderate effect on the game. My mistake.
I am sure there are other rules we got wrong, but I was nonetheless really pleased to be able to get this one back on the table. It is very atmospheric and bloodthirsty - I'm not usually a bloodthirsty player, but one lovely benefit of games is acting out impulses that otherwise aren't socially acceptable.
A very important lesson to learn from the layout of this rulebook: Try not to use more than three to four typefaces on the same page (a generally good graphic design rule, I'm told) ... This rulebook uses five or six... a script-like (and therefore not easily scanned) font for major headings, a bolded, indented serif font for its sub-headings, Casablanca Antique (a "distressed" serif font) for headings of summaries and expositions and a sans-serif font for the summaries and expositions themselves. In addition, the examples are given in italics, and there are often very large blocks of italicized print.
This makes for a very visually dense rulebook, which makes for rapid location of certain rules difficult. Don't do this if you want an easily played game.
I'd really like to play this game again soon while the rules are fresh in our minds. Unfortunately with 5 players, the suggested play time of 2 hours for 6 turns is not feasible - even with five experienced players, I think 3 hours for 6 turns is more realistic.
So, let's play this one again soon, shall we?
Oh yeah, Bharmer won. Kill the leader is vicious in this game!
Last time we had this out (according to the blog) was March 9th, 2006. Strangely, almost exactly a year ago. Somehow I thought it had been longer. I guess we've just gone through a lot of games since.
As before, we (well, I) made some rules errors. The rulebook, as atmospheric as it is, is poorly phrased and organized in many cases, which makes for quick location of critical rules difficult.
Concerning Re-rolls: Any card or ability which specifies re-rolls allows re-roll of any dice involved in the challenge or contest, not just those belonging to the player. This is covered under the heading "Dice" in section 3.6. This may have made a difference in Shemp's strategy at one point.
Torpor arising from Resolution Phase loss: Agent Easy was sent into torpor in the last turn of this game because he only had one vitae remaining. This is incorrect... the vitae is lost if the game continues. (section 5.5 - Resolution Phase). This is my error in reading the rules. Fortunately, it would not have made a major difference for this game (though it would permit Easy to place second instead of fourth). It did make a major difference in our first game, so we should definitely remember this.
Where to draw from: For some reason, I told people in this game we drew from the bottom of the deck. I must have confused this game with another, because no where in the rules does it mention this. I can't recall the game where you draw from the bottom, but I know it happens somewhere. In this game, you draw from the top, and put event cards into play as they come up.
Cards in play cannot be put back into the hand. During the game, I lost two zones (harbor and mercantile district) which made it impossible for me to maintain my Labor Union Domain. Thinking it was legal, during my next Resource Phase, I put the Labor Union Domain card back into my hidden hand. This is illegal. Cards must be discarded outright or otherwise lost - they cannot be put back into the hand in normal rules. I used this card later for its one point value which enabled a event to be beaten (the one where Shemp and I were working together) so this had a moderate effect on the game. My mistake.
I am sure there are other rules we got wrong, but I was nonetheless really pleased to be able to get this one back on the table. It is very atmospheric and bloodthirsty - I'm not usually a bloodthirsty player, but one lovely benefit of games is acting out impulses that otherwise aren't socially acceptable.
A very important lesson to learn from the layout of this rulebook: Try not to use more than three to four typefaces on the same page (a generally good graphic design rule, I'm told) ... This rulebook uses five or six... a script-like (and therefore not easily scanned) font for major headings, a bolded, indented serif font for its sub-headings, Casablanca Antique (a "distressed" serif font) for headings of summaries and expositions and a sans-serif font for the summaries and expositions themselves. In addition, the examples are given in italics, and there are often very large blocks of italicized print.
This makes for a very visually dense rulebook, which makes for rapid location of certain rules difficult. Don't do this if you want an easily played game.
I'd really like to play this game again soon while the rules are fresh in our minds. Unfortunately with 5 players, the suggested play time of 2 hours for 6 turns is not feasible - even with five experienced players, I think 3 hours for 6 turns is more realistic.
So, let's play this one again soon, shall we?
Oh yeah, Bharmer won. Kill the leader is vicious in this game!
Monday, March 05, 2007
So, Grendel Ate My Legs... Again.
Christofer Marcusson the Battle-Scarred rolled over in his cot of straw and stared at his guest, one rheumy eye drilling a hole of intensity into the young thane, the other eye-socket a mass of healed burns and claw scars.
"Aye, young thane. I travelled with Beowulf Grendel-slayer in my youth. But beware, says I; The path to glory leads but to the halls of Valhalla, or the sodden bunk of a battered old man."
Marcusson sat up gingerly, leg stumps dangling where powerful calves once donned thick leather boots.
"I have dined in the halls of Hrothgar-King, and I have heard the fell screams of the Sea Hag. I drained full the draughts of the victory over the great Dragon when the great Geat himself fell."
A shadow passed over his one good eye, "and aye, I carried him on his shield to his cremation. He met his doom like a warrior, not as an old and useless churl."
"So hear my tale and know that not all who would sail into glory die happy or in the heat of battle."
Beowulf plus Taj Mahal, two fine auction/bidding games from Knizia, paired up to be our gaming entertainment last week. Unfortunately, as the intro to this entry alludes, my foray into Beowulf was not as successful as previous efforts. I had won both of our previous games with scores in the 40s (or thereabouts). This time I limped away from the final chapter with something like 14 points. At least I avoided the dreaded three-wound penalty of -5 points per wound, which would've probably put me into the negative. Shemp came away with this one, though I believe Easy and Bharmer weren't too far behind. About halfway through, my main goal morphed from coming in first to not being last, which is never a good sign.
This does bring up the question of whether it's very possible to come back after an early game disaster (or disasters) in Beowulf. I suppose later games will tell. I still enjoyed this game, but more from a survival perspective rather than a competition for first standpoint. I just felt like I was almost constantly fighting to keep my head above water (avoiding additional wounds and scratches) instead of being able to gain new cards and points.
This game is both more competitive and shorter than Knizia's previous game with a similar mechanic, Lord of the Rings. I enjoy both, but for very different reasons.
Taj Mahal falls into the category of games which I admire from a design point of view, but don't find very engaging personally. Once again, after falling behind early, I felt like I was largely out of the running for the remainder of the game. There are mechanics to assist in this regard, so I don't intend this as a criticism (yet). Maybe after two or three more games. Easy and Shemp duked it out for first, with Shemp coming in first, I believe and Bharmer not too far behind.
A bad night for me, but enjoyable for friendship and gaming in general as always.
Partially inspired by playing the game this week, I rented "Beowulf and Grendel" (2005 Canadian-Danish-UK co-production) on the weekend. It's not bad - a few great lines and a few real clunkers. Sarah Polly in particular seems out of place. Worth watching, though.
"Aye, young thane. I travelled with Beowulf Grendel-slayer in my youth. But beware, says I; The path to glory leads but to the halls of Valhalla, or the sodden bunk of a battered old man."
Marcusson sat up gingerly, leg stumps dangling where powerful calves once donned thick leather boots.
"I have dined in the halls of Hrothgar-King, and I have heard the fell screams of the Sea Hag. I drained full the draughts of the victory over the great Dragon when the great Geat himself fell."
A shadow passed over his one good eye, "and aye, I carried him on his shield to his cremation. He met his doom like a warrior, not as an old and useless churl."
"So hear my tale and know that not all who would sail into glory die happy or in the heat of battle."
Beowulf plus Taj Mahal, two fine auction/bidding games from Knizia, paired up to be our gaming entertainment last week. Unfortunately, as the intro to this entry alludes, my foray into Beowulf was not as successful as previous efforts. I had won both of our previous games with scores in the 40s (or thereabouts). This time I limped away from the final chapter with something like 14 points. At least I avoided the dreaded three-wound penalty of -5 points per wound, which would've probably put me into the negative. Shemp came away with this one, though I believe Easy and Bharmer weren't too far behind. About halfway through, my main goal morphed from coming in first to not being last, which is never a good sign.
This does bring up the question of whether it's very possible to come back after an early game disaster (or disasters) in Beowulf. I suppose later games will tell. I still enjoyed this game, but more from a survival perspective rather than a competition for first standpoint. I just felt like I was almost constantly fighting to keep my head above water (avoiding additional wounds and scratches) instead of being able to gain new cards and points.
This game is both more competitive and shorter than Knizia's previous game with a similar mechanic, Lord of the Rings. I enjoy both, but for very different reasons.
Taj Mahal falls into the category of games which I admire from a design point of view, but don't find very engaging personally. Once again, after falling behind early, I felt like I was largely out of the running for the remainder of the game. There are mechanics to assist in this regard, so I don't intend this as a criticism (yet). Maybe after two or three more games. Easy and Shemp duked it out for first, with Shemp coming in first, I believe and Bharmer not too far behind.
A bad night for me, but enjoyable for friendship and gaming in general as always.
Partially inspired by playing the game this week, I rented "Beowulf and Grendel" (2005 Canadian-Danish-UK co-production) on the weekend. It's not bad - a few great lines and a few real clunkers. Sarah Polly in particular seems out of place. Worth watching, though.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Four Corners of Gaming
This week's theme was "Connect Four"; games which work well with four players. Agent Easy had informed us in advance he would not be attending, so we were prepared. We began the evening somewhat late with Blokus, a game that really doesn't work well with any other number than four. While we were waiting for the inestimable Bharmer to tear himself away from work, we tried the three-player variant of Blokus, which requires three players to take turns placing the fourth colour's shapes.
As seems to be the case in many games we play where there is an "automated" or "group controlled" extra player, the red "bot" won. Shemp came in second, so I suppose technically he won. Bharmer tried to argue that since we were playing his seat until he showed up, he won. I don't think this would stand up in a court of law.
At this point, the suitably four-cornered vegetarian lasagna was ready. We dug in over an actual four player game. Ouch (or Luch, or Hapi, or whatever he's calling himself these days) tried an innovative but ultimately unsuccessful compressed strategy of ignoring the usual dash for the centre area and concentrating instead on placing his own pieces largely in his own corner. Bharmer did quite well for his maiden foray into the game, catching on quite quickly as is usual for him. It came down to a relatively close match between Shemp and I - I squeaked through to win by finding a way to place my pieces which I don't think many people saw until the endgame. I put down all of my pieces. I believe Shemp was second with something like 7 or 8 squares remaining. I usually do middling well in this game, so I was pleased to take the laurel.
We moved on to Vegas Showdown. This game continues to improve with additional plays, at least for me. The bidding is competitive without being overly frustrating or overlong, the mat tile-placement strategy is challenging without being convoluted, and there are definitely several strategies for success. I think that four players is probably a sweet spot for this game because with five you might have a lot more "thwarting" due to being outbid in auctions (there isn't an additional premier tile slot in a five player game). I don't recall playing this with five players yet, though we might have when Jaywowzer came by, so it's hard to say.
I won by a margin of 8 fame (I believe), taking something like 64 total (?), with Shemp giving me a definite run for my money. I often ignore income (revenue) early in the game, concentrating on quick fame grabs. Since the restaurants and lounges often give quick fame boosts from events, building them early on is one definite strategy which helped me out. I often fall behind in revenue, but this game I managed to have a fairly substantial income by the end of the game. Also unusual for me was my achievement of filling both Hotel and Casino sections and connecting the two entrances, something I haven't been able to do in all but one of my sessions with this game. I usually come in second or third in this game lately, so it was satisfying to win it as well. Four points from three-quarter finished red corners and the bonus points from the Famous Chef card probably put me over the top, but I did quite well in all categories.
Due to my incorrect reading of the rules, we played with the renovation rule incorrectly - forcing players to take one renovation action to remove tiles and a second to place previously removed tiles. This affected Shemp and Ouch adversely. We will review this rule again next time we play - I believe the correct reading is "remove 0, 1 or 2 tiles, then place 0, 1 or 2 tiles" with no limitations on replacing tiles which had just been removed.
This game has become one of the long-term favourites in my collection. Definite top 10 material, and quite possibly top 5.
We've taken to using 11.5 gram clay composite chips to substitute for the plastic chips provided with the game. It definitely improves the feel. If I could mount the player mats on more sturdy material, I think the overall impression of the game would improve even more.
My winning streak ended with a horrendous crash as we finished the night with TransEuropa - the version of TransAmerica set in Europe. I am not very good at this game at all - I have consistently played poorly with it, and last night was no exception. I was the "game ender" in both sessions. I think Ouch won the second game and Shemp won the first. I enjoy the simplicity and speed of this game, but I do feel that the random card draw can have a significant affect on one's odds of winning, even over three deals. For instance, in the first game, I was dealt Oslo twice. As far as I can make out, aside from Madrid and Bilbao, it's one of the most inaccesible locations, especially if no one else is dealt Stockholm or Malmo. Bharmer decided to leave a little early so as to catch up on rest, so we were playing with only three, which is not optimal for the game system (or so I gather).
I am getting better with additional plays and I do enjoy the game, but I am not good at this one.
As seems to be the case in many games we play where there is an "automated" or "group controlled" extra player, the red "bot" won. Shemp came in second, so I suppose technically he won. Bharmer tried to argue that since we were playing his seat until he showed up, he won. I don't think this would stand up in a court of law.
At this point, the suitably four-cornered vegetarian lasagna was ready. We dug in over an actual four player game. Ouch (or Luch, or Hapi, or whatever he's calling himself these days) tried an innovative but ultimately unsuccessful compressed strategy of ignoring the usual dash for the centre area and concentrating instead on placing his own pieces largely in his own corner. Bharmer did quite well for his maiden foray into the game, catching on quite quickly as is usual for him. It came down to a relatively close match between Shemp and I - I squeaked through to win by finding a way to place my pieces which I don't think many people saw until the endgame. I put down all of my pieces. I believe Shemp was second with something like 7 or 8 squares remaining. I usually do middling well in this game, so I was pleased to take the laurel.
We moved on to Vegas Showdown. This game continues to improve with additional plays, at least for me. The bidding is competitive without being overly frustrating or overlong, the mat tile-placement strategy is challenging without being convoluted, and there are definitely several strategies for success. I think that four players is probably a sweet spot for this game because with five you might have a lot more "thwarting" due to being outbid in auctions (there isn't an additional premier tile slot in a five player game). I don't recall playing this with five players yet, though we might have when Jaywowzer came by, so it's hard to say.
I won by a margin of 8 fame (I believe), taking something like 64 total (?), with Shemp giving me a definite run for my money. I often ignore income (revenue) early in the game, concentrating on quick fame grabs. Since the restaurants and lounges often give quick fame boosts from events, building them early on is one definite strategy which helped me out. I often fall behind in revenue, but this game I managed to have a fairly substantial income by the end of the game. Also unusual for me was my achievement of filling both Hotel and Casino sections and connecting the two entrances, something I haven't been able to do in all but one of my sessions with this game. I usually come in second or third in this game lately, so it was satisfying to win it as well. Four points from three-quarter finished red corners and the bonus points from the Famous Chef card probably put me over the top, but I did quite well in all categories.
Due to my incorrect reading of the rules, we played with the renovation rule incorrectly - forcing players to take one renovation action to remove tiles and a second to place previously removed tiles. This affected Shemp and Ouch adversely. We will review this rule again next time we play - I believe the correct reading is "remove 0, 1 or 2 tiles, then place 0, 1 or 2 tiles" with no limitations on replacing tiles which had just been removed.
This game has become one of the long-term favourites in my collection. Definite top 10 material, and quite possibly top 5.
We've taken to using 11.5 gram clay composite chips to substitute for the plastic chips provided with the game. It definitely improves the feel. If I could mount the player mats on more sturdy material, I think the overall impression of the game would improve even more.
My winning streak ended with a horrendous crash as we finished the night with TransEuropa - the version of TransAmerica set in Europe. I am not very good at this game at all - I have consistently played poorly with it, and last night was no exception. I was the "game ender" in both sessions. I think Ouch won the second game and Shemp won the first. I enjoy the simplicity and speed of this game, but I do feel that the random card draw can have a significant affect on one's odds of winning, even over three deals. For instance, in the first game, I was dealt Oslo twice. As far as I can make out, aside from Madrid and Bilbao, it's one of the most inaccesible locations, especially if no one else is dealt Stockholm or Malmo. Bharmer decided to leave a little early so as to catch up on rest, so we were playing with only three, which is not optimal for the game system (or so I gather).
I am getting better with additional plays and I do enjoy the game, but I am not good at this one.
Labels:
Blokus,
Four player,
Rule errors,
Session,
Tile placement,
Transamerica,
TransEuropa,
Vegas Showdown
Friday, February 09, 2007
Lucrative Shizzle Coming Up!
This week LUCH! was the dictator; this week he also was on crack. Well, he definitely was the dictator -- the being on crack part is an assumption, albeit a well-founded one.
Our beloved dictator decreed that we would play RA, Wildlife, and Railroad Tycoon, in untried, previously undisclosed variant versions. Seeing as our typical game session is 4 hours, and the named games would not be playable in that period of time, we were all intrigued. Easy waggishly suggested that the Railroad Tycoon variant must be to not play it at all. I hypothesized that LUCH! was going to bring 20 giant eggtimers to the session, to better realize his mad variants! THEN, our dictator was late, further compressing things - how would this work?
Well, Agent Easy was correct. The Railroad Tycoon variant was, indeed, to not play it at all. Having said that, we still got a couple of rounds of Ra in, as well as a nice session of Wildlife.
The first round of Ra was 4 player, Bharmer/Easy/Tilli/Shemp, and did not vary from the standard rules of the game in any way. It was a fairly uneventful play; I had decided to call Ra everytime play came around to me and there were more than 3 tiles on the board before play started, and it payed off. In the first epoch I was the only one that was able to use all three of my sun tiles, and built up a fair lead. Tilli had a monster 3rd epoch, but it wasn't quite enough to catch up. I ended up winning w/ 59 points, which I only note for the purposes of comparison with the next game of Ra we played.
The next game of Ra we played was (drumroll ...) LUCH's variant. Players were Bharmer/Easy/Kozure/LUCH/Shemp. It was very confusing, and someone else will need to recap in comments. I didn't understand it. This is most assuredly because of my own lack of brainpower, but there it is. (Alternate explanation: LUCH IS ON CRACK.) The variant involved mummies and upkeep. Ra tiles were repeatedly drawn. In the whole first Epoch, I think a total of all players scores was less than ten. We were thinking that was OK - surely, a cruddy first age would result in even better subsequent ages, right? Of course! We were hyped for some LUCRATIVE SHIZZLE COMING UP!!. Only, it didn't. Not in the second epoch. Not in the third epoch. Somehow, nothing good was ever on the board when Ra was called. It seems impossible, but there it was. Wholly disappointing. Bharmer and I raced to the bottom, but disappointingly, neither of us finished at zero. Final scores were 12 for Bharmer and I, with LUCH! winning his own variant, with a score of something or other that was higher. Easy and Kozure had less than that, but more than 12. While we were packing up the game, the board attacked Bharmer. I think that may have tipped this over into the category of Most Farcical Session of Ra, EVAR. [ PLEASE NOTE: I don't think that necessarily condemns LUCH's variant. It was too weird to tell if it works out or not. Might need more crack. Or less. ]
On to a game of Wildlife, which we've played before. Second play of this for Human Easy and Eagle Bharmer; Third for Crocodile LUCH and Snake Shemp; Bear Kozure has played more frequently. I'm enjoying this game a lot - it feels very open ended, as if there are many possible strategies and tactics to pursue; as a group, we are clearly still crawling at this point. I don't think I'll get too much into the play by play, other than to note that the Snakes quickly evolved and were able to quickly create a large herd across four regions, opening up a large lead in the first scoring round. The other players remembered that there is no tunnel and took steps to prevent serpentine hegemony from winning out, while keeping a close eye on each other. End result? A three way tie for first until the final points for remaining food were scored, handing a narrow victory to the snakes, with eagles and humans close behind, and the crocodiles only a couple of additional points back. Very close!
I think the balancing mechanisms incorporated into the game are extremely clever, particularly the way that it becomes quite difficult for the player in the lead to hold on to advancements, which not only confer advantages in gameplay, but are also potentially worth points during scoring rounds. Some numbered points to ponder, hopefully to further our own evolution as players:
1. The Movement Ability: What would be an effective way to use this? What strategies need to be implemented?
2. How practical is it to co-ordinate actions between players to negate certain advantages? What level of "table talk" is acceptable? [ example: Player A holds a Defense ability. Player B steals the Defense ability. This is only useful if Player C, D, or E then attack A. ]
3. Roughly how many actions, total, occur before the game is completed? Does this vary to a greater or lesser degree? Would this information be useful in formulating a strategy?
4. To what extent would a strategy be useful in this game? Is it largely strategic or largely tactical?
5. Is this an area control game, or do the other methods of scoring turn this into something else? Rephrased, is there any real value in holding areas? Monopolies are worth only slightly more than leads, remember.
6. Should we change LUCH!'s name to Lucrative? I say yes.
7. What other factors in Wildlife could bear fruit if analyzed?
DISCUSS.
Our beloved dictator decreed that we would play RA, Wildlife, and Railroad Tycoon, in untried, previously undisclosed variant versions. Seeing as our typical game session is 4 hours, and the named games would not be playable in that period of time, we were all intrigued. Easy waggishly suggested that the Railroad Tycoon variant must be to not play it at all. I hypothesized that LUCH! was going to bring 20 giant eggtimers to the session, to better realize his mad variants! THEN, our dictator was late, further compressing things - how would this work?
Well, Agent Easy was correct. The Railroad Tycoon variant was, indeed, to not play it at all. Having said that, we still got a couple of rounds of Ra in, as well as a nice session of Wildlife.
The first round of Ra was 4 player, Bharmer/Easy/Tilli/Shemp, and did not vary from the standard rules of the game in any way. It was a fairly uneventful play; I had decided to call Ra everytime play came around to me and there were more than 3 tiles on the board before play started, and it payed off. In the first epoch I was the only one that was able to use all three of my sun tiles, and built up a fair lead. Tilli had a monster 3rd epoch, but it wasn't quite enough to catch up. I ended up winning w/ 59 points, which I only note for the purposes of comparison with the next game of Ra we played.
The next game of Ra we played was (drumroll ...) LUCH's variant. Players were Bharmer/Easy/Kozure/LUCH/Shemp. It was very confusing, and someone else will need to recap in comments. I didn't understand it. This is most assuredly because of my own lack of brainpower, but there it is. (Alternate explanation: LUCH IS ON CRACK.) The variant involved mummies and upkeep. Ra tiles were repeatedly drawn. In the whole first Epoch, I think a total of all players scores was less than ten. We were thinking that was OK - surely, a cruddy first age would result in even better subsequent ages, right? Of course! We were hyped for some LUCRATIVE SHIZZLE COMING UP!!. Only, it didn't. Not in the second epoch. Not in the third epoch. Somehow, nothing good was ever on the board when Ra was called. It seems impossible, but there it was. Wholly disappointing. Bharmer and I raced to the bottom, but disappointingly, neither of us finished at zero. Final scores were 12 for Bharmer and I, with LUCH! winning his own variant, with a score of something or other that was higher. Easy and Kozure had less than that, but more than 12. While we were packing up the game, the board attacked Bharmer. I think that may have tipped this over into the category of Most Farcical Session of Ra, EVAR. [ PLEASE NOTE: I don't think that necessarily condemns LUCH's variant. It was too weird to tell if it works out or not. Might need more crack. Or less. ]
On to a game of Wildlife, which we've played before. Second play of this for Human Easy and Eagle Bharmer; Third for Crocodile LUCH and Snake Shemp; Bear Kozure has played more frequently. I'm enjoying this game a lot - it feels very open ended, as if there are many possible strategies and tactics to pursue; as a group, we are clearly still crawling at this point. I don't think I'll get too much into the play by play, other than to note that the Snakes quickly evolved and were able to quickly create a large herd across four regions, opening up a large lead in the first scoring round. The other players remembered that there is no tunnel and took steps to prevent serpentine hegemony from winning out, while keeping a close eye on each other. End result? A three way tie for first until the final points for remaining food were scored, handing a narrow victory to the snakes, with eagles and humans close behind, and the crocodiles only a couple of additional points back. Very close!
I think the balancing mechanisms incorporated into the game are extremely clever, particularly the way that it becomes quite difficult for the player in the lead to hold on to advancements, which not only confer advantages in gameplay, but are also potentially worth points during scoring rounds. Some numbered points to ponder, hopefully to further our own evolution as players:
1. The Movement Ability: What would be an effective way to use this? What strategies need to be implemented?
2. How practical is it to co-ordinate actions between players to negate certain advantages? What level of "table talk" is acceptable? [ example: Player A holds a Defense ability. Player B steals the Defense ability. This is only useful if Player C, D, or E then attack A. ]
3. Roughly how many actions, total, occur before the game is completed? Does this vary to a greater or lesser degree? Would this information be useful in formulating a strategy?
4. To what extent would a strategy be useful in this game? Is it largely strategic or largely tactical?
5. Is this an area control game, or do the other methods of scoring turn this into something else? Rephrased, is there any real value in holding areas? Monopolies are worth only slightly more than leads, remember.
6. Should we change LUCH!'s name to Lucrative? I say yes.
7. What other factors in Wildlife could bear fruit if analyzed?
DISCUSS.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
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.
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.
Labels:
Knizia,
Modern Art,
Session,
Tigris And Euphrates
Saturday, January 27, 2007
"Fusion" games (Mission: Red Planet, Space Dealer, Beowulf)
To a certain extent, all new games owe a debt to previous ones... whether it's an elaboration of an old game mechanic, a variation on a theme, or a refinement of a game system. However, recently we've played games which seem to wear their inspirations so prominently that they feel more like combinations of other games, rather than wholly original works. Three such games are Mission: Red Planet, Beowulf and Vegas Showdown. I've started calling these "fusion" games, for whatever reason. I have nothing against this sort of game! As long as the result is fun, and different enough from it's sources to be worth pulling off the shelf, I'm happy to play them.
I thought it would be fun to combine them into a gaming session. JayWowzer was in attendence this evening (though Bharmer was not), and he brought along Space Dealer. Space dealer is definitely NOT what I would classify as a "Fusion" game... I haven't really played anything like it! Still, themes are meant to be broken, right?
Mission: Red Planet (Citadels + El Grande)
We started off with Mission: Red Planet. I drew the mission card with a bonus for having the most astronauts on Mars, so I decided to make that my guiding principle for the game. I figured I would pick the roles offering the most astronauts, and then use the prospector a few times to maximize their use. That didn't happen.
Maybe I'm missing something, but an earlier irritation of mine came back: there is something odd (and unsatisfying) about the number and types of roles! The penalty for playing the prospector (only placing one astronaut, no other ability), is simply to strong to allow a player to use him twice. If the powers of the other characters were of wildly different strengths, then I could see swallowing the penalty in order to get the powerful ones back, but as it is all the roles are normally usefull at all times. If I have the soldier left, I'll remove another player's astronaut, if I have the temptress, I'll convert another player's astronaut. Changing the destination and blowing up a ship are both usefull and disruptive. The scientist has it's place. etc, etc. All are useful, but none so much that I would pick the prospector twice to see it three times (for example). So, the game becomes: which one or two roles will I use twice, and when will I make the switch (which follows that every game will see each player play each role once over the course of the game)? That's too bad, because it seems like it would be interesting to build an alternate strategy out of recycling the same characters to achieve a specific goal.
Anyway, I played the scientist early, and it netted me a second mission card (have an astronaut in each of the eastern regions). I focussed on fulfilling those missions, but watched as my spaceships routinely got redirected to other regions (seriously, it happened several times). I actually quite enjoy this aspect of the game. This is area control done with a healthy dose of chaos, but it is fun as long as it's played fast. I found myself mostly in competition with Jaywowzer in the East, and since my ships kept getting redirected I was constantly in competition with Luch in the north-west (a region I had no interest in, yet which had nearly half my astronauts!!!). Shane had free reign of the south-west and Luch was sitting quietly in the center all on his own (two ice regions). Kozure had his eyes on the north and south poles.
When the dust settled, Shemp was the winner by a nose. He had 37, Kozure and I had 35. Things might have been different if Jaywowzer and I hadn't placed astronauts in Luch's center regions on the last turn... he had a major bonus for any regions he solely occupied (not a card either of us were familiar with. We'll be more careful in the future).
Space Dealer
We followed with Space Dealer. I'm not going to get into detail, but this is an odd one. Players each have a ship and a home base. They each develop their home base in order to be able to produce resources. They then take their resources and deliver them to another player's home base in order to sell them. Victoy points are aquired by 1) being the player to have sold the goods another player's base needed, and 2) having a section of your base receive what it wants by another player.
Therefore, you win by building a base others want to deliver to, and by beating other players to satisfying the needs of other bases. Nothing terribly special yet.
The game stands out because of the way it deals with time. A game will always last 30 minutes, because it comes with a CD which must be played along with the game. When it ends, the game ends. Secondly, each player gets two sand timers. When they want to take an action, they place a sand timer on the item they want to build/ move or use to produce a good. When the timer ends, the effect happens and the timer can be moved to another location. In other words, there are no turns. There is no downtime. No time to analyse, so no analysis-paralysis.
Does it work? I have no idea. In our first (and only) game, I committed so many mistakes that it was embarrassing. I would place my timer on resource production, only to realize that since my ship was gone all the resources would go to waste. I would put my timer on a new section for my base, only to realize I couldn't fit it anywhere. I'm pretty sure others were doing the same. It was fun, in a wacky sort of way. There was tension in trying to orchestrate things to produce the right goods and then send your ship to the other player's base before the guy across from you could do the same. A few times I would be waiting with my hand next to the timer, staring at Kozure's across from me, watching the sand go down to see who would make it first to Luch's base and satisfy the request (since you have to focus so much on what you are doing, it's not uncommon to go through the trouble of producing something and start delivering it, only to discover it's no longer available or someone else is trying to do the same thing at the same time). Anyway, it was fun and definitely a change of pace.
Beowulf (Lord of the Rings + Taj Mahal)
We finished up with our second playing of Beowulf. We corrected a rule we played incorrectly last time: players can risk once EVERY TIME an auction comes around to them (we were playing that each player could only risk once per auction). Still not that familiar with the board, but certainly it helped to know roughly what was ahead. With the risking system properly implemented, the tone of the game really changed. The first circular auction (Grendel's attack) was a brutal, long battle which saw players risking turn after turn. I've read that the odds of failing a risk is roughly 30%. I think that it must be less than that (15-20%, perhaps?). That, or we all were quite lucky throughout the game! Either way, risking featured so prominently this game that it seemed our hand was roughly 50% of what was necessary to win any hotly contested auction. It was dramatic and exciting, and certainly fun, but also very luck heavy. Knowing Knizia, there is a way to win at Beowulf without risking too much, but it probably takes a much sharper player to win that way. Right now, I'm seeing this as a game where you stack the odds in your favour and hope things pan out (this is an aspect of RA which I really like... that you play the odds and do your best, but things can play out in unexpected ways despite your best layed plans. Despite this, the better player will win most of the games)
I actually had a lot of fun. Certainly, Kozure seems to know something we don't, because he won this second game as handily as the first! I limped into the end and managed a second last place (as opposed to my last place showing last time). He seemed to always work it out so that he'd have the right resources at the right time. He had his share of lucky draws, but so did the rest of us. I hope the risks stay fun, and don't become an annoyance (I know, I know, that those who play this game a lot say that this can all be controlled to a certain extent. I'm even willing to beleive it. Like Ra, percieved chaos is a frequent complaint levelled at the game). It only mention it because there was SO MUCH successful risking this game that I can't imagine the next would see less. I feel that risking should hurt a little more often, to make the decision to risk a little harder, but we'll see.
It was too late to play Vegas Showdown, but I'm sure we'll see it again soon. Thanks to JayWowzer for coming, and for being our connection hot new games!
I thought it would be fun to combine them into a gaming session. JayWowzer was in attendence this evening (though Bharmer was not), and he brought along Space Dealer. Space dealer is definitely NOT what I would classify as a "Fusion" game... I haven't really played anything like it! Still, themes are meant to be broken, right?
Mission: Red Planet (Citadels + El Grande)
We started off with Mission: Red Planet. I drew the mission card with a bonus for having the most astronauts on Mars, so I decided to make that my guiding principle for the game. I figured I would pick the roles offering the most astronauts, and then use the prospector a few times to maximize their use. That didn't happen.
Maybe I'm missing something, but an earlier irritation of mine came back: there is something odd (and unsatisfying) about the number and types of roles! The penalty for playing the prospector (only placing one astronaut, no other ability), is simply to strong to allow a player to use him twice. If the powers of the other characters were of wildly different strengths, then I could see swallowing the penalty in order to get the powerful ones back, but as it is all the roles are normally usefull at all times. If I have the soldier left, I'll remove another player's astronaut, if I have the temptress, I'll convert another player's astronaut. Changing the destination and blowing up a ship are both usefull and disruptive. The scientist has it's place. etc, etc. All are useful, but none so much that I would pick the prospector twice to see it three times (for example). So, the game becomes: which one or two roles will I use twice, and when will I make the switch (which follows that every game will see each player play each role once over the course of the game)? That's too bad, because it seems like it would be interesting to build an alternate strategy out of recycling the same characters to achieve a specific goal.
Anyway, I played the scientist early, and it netted me a second mission card (have an astronaut in each of the eastern regions). I focussed on fulfilling those missions, but watched as my spaceships routinely got redirected to other regions (seriously, it happened several times). I actually quite enjoy this aspect of the game. This is area control done with a healthy dose of chaos, but it is fun as long as it's played fast. I found myself mostly in competition with Jaywowzer in the East, and since my ships kept getting redirected I was constantly in competition with Luch in the north-west (a region I had no interest in, yet which had nearly half my astronauts!!!). Shane had free reign of the south-west and Luch was sitting quietly in the center all on his own (two ice regions). Kozure had his eyes on the north and south poles.
When the dust settled, Shemp was the winner by a nose. He had 37, Kozure and I had 35. Things might have been different if Jaywowzer and I hadn't placed astronauts in Luch's center regions on the last turn... he had a major bonus for any regions he solely occupied (not a card either of us were familiar with. We'll be more careful in the future).
Space Dealer
We followed with Space Dealer. I'm not going to get into detail, but this is an odd one. Players each have a ship and a home base. They each develop their home base in order to be able to produce resources. They then take their resources and deliver them to another player's home base in order to sell them. Victoy points are aquired by 1) being the player to have sold the goods another player's base needed, and 2) having a section of your base receive what it wants by another player.
Therefore, you win by building a base others want to deliver to, and by beating other players to satisfying the needs of other bases. Nothing terribly special yet.
The game stands out because of the way it deals with time. A game will always last 30 minutes, because it comes with a CD which must be played along with the game. When it ends, the game ends. Secondly, each player gets two sand timers. When they want to take an action, they place a sand timer on the item they want to build/ move or use to produce a good. When the timer ends, the effect happens and the timer can be moved to another location. In other words, there are no turns. There is no downtime. No time to analyse, so no analysis-paralysis.
Does it work? I have no idea. In our first (and only) game, I committed so many mistakes that it was embarrassing. I would place my timer on resource production, only to realize that since my ship was gone all the resources would go to waste. I would put my timer on a new section for my base, only to realize I couldn't fit it anywhere. I'm pretty sure others were doing the same. It was fun, in a wacky sort of way. There was tension in trying to orchestrate things to produce the right goods and then send your ship to the other player's base before the guy across from you could do the same. A few times I would be waiting with my hand next to the timer, staring at Kozure's across from me, watching the sand go down to see who would make it first to Luch's base and satisfy the request (since you have to focus so much on what you are doing, it's not uncommon to go through the trouble of producing something and start delivering it, only to discover it's no longer available or someone else is trying to do the same thing at the same time). Anyway, it was fun and definitely a change of pace.
Beowulf (Lord of the Rings + Taj Mahal)
We finished up with our second playing of Beowulf. We corrected a rule we played incorrectly last time: players can risk once EVERY TIME an auction comes around to them (we were playing that each player could only risk once per auction). Still not that familiar with the board, but certainly it helped to know roughly what was ahead. With the risking system properly implemented, the tone of the game really changed. The first circular auction (Grendel's attack) was a brutal, long battle which saw players risking turn after turn. I've read that the odds of failing a risk is roughly 30%. I think that it must be less than that (15-20%, perhaps?). That, or we all were quite lucky throughout the game! Either way, risking featured so prominently this game that it seemed our hand was roughly 50% of what was necessary to win any hotly contested auction. It was dramatic and exciting, and certainly fun, but also very luck heavy. Knowing Knizia, there is a way to win at Beowulf without risking too much, but it probably takes a much sharper player to win that way. Right now, I'm seeing this as a game where you stack the odds in your favour and hope things pan out (this is an aspect of RA which I really like... that you play the odds and do your best, but things can play out in unexpected ways despite your best layed plans. Despite this, the better player will win most of the games)
I actually had a lot of fun. Certainly, Kozure seems to know something we don't, because he won this second game as handily as the first! I limped into the end and managed a second last place (as opposed to my last place showing last time). He seemed to always work it out so that he'd have the right resources at the right time. He had his share of lucky draws, but so did the rest of us. I hope the risks stay fun, and don't become an annoyance (I know, I know, that those who play this game a lot say that this can all be controlled to a certain extent. I'm even willing to beleive it. Like Ra, percieved chaos is a frequent complaint levelled at the game). It only mention it because there was SO MUCH successful risking this game that I can't imagine the next would see less. I feel that risking should hurt a little more often, to make the decision to risk a little harder, but we'll see.
It was too late to play Vegas Showdown, but I'm sure we'll see it again soon. Thanks to JayWowzer for coming, and for being our connection hot new games!
Labels:
Beowulf,
Egg Timers,
Mission: Red Planet,
Session,
Space Dealer
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
