We had an unusual two player session this week... just me and Shemp could make it. Other than wargames, my collection is fairly light on two player games, but we did get a chance to play a few games that don't often see the light of day.
Steam: St. Lucia
I bought this Bezier Games expansion map mostly for the single player side (which I like a lot). It's a bit strange because every single space gets a cube at the start of the game, and absolutely no coloured cities exist until somebody urbanizes. IT makes for a map that changes substantially between plays and is quite wide open with opportunity in the first half (though it does get tight before the game ends). Surprisingly, I did get to play the St. Lucia side once before with Luch on New Year's day. In that game, we pretty much had each started on one end of the island and worked down towards the middle. Not so with Shemp. I payed for first player privileges and after I had established my link he immediately built off of it. Unsurprisingly, our relationship was poisonous to both of us. I kept hold of the first player action and urbanized all the towns in the south using up all the coloured cities in the process and ensuring my track was in the way for all his deliveries.
(I'll note that we got a rule wrong... we played that the first player had the option to keep paying to go first until he passed or the 2nd player took the initiative special action. The correct rule is that turn order alternates... much more forgiving on player 2).
Shemp had a great deal of trouble getting in the black with this setup, and in the end I won fairly handily. This was all around a live and learn type of experience for both of us... I'm sure we would play very differently next time. All in all, it's a good two player board that I can see playing again.
Steam: Jamaica
Jamaica is a curious board. It's a small map, and relatively symmetrical. There are just two coloured cities in the middle and a handful of towns on either end. The game does not have a set number of rounds, and instead ends once all goods are exhausted. It didn't take us long to figure out that this was going to be a very barren board very quick. Barren board = brutal game. The only thing that could have made it more difficult is if they introduced terrain that cost more than usual to cross. Oh, yeah. They did that. The middle is mountainous, and those add +3 to track costs.
I urbanized both ends of the board, placing my track so that Shemp would hopefully be forced to ship through my links. Both our debts were spiraling out of control because building our infrastructure was expensive and long deliveries were hard to find. Most of the game was spent making sad 1-3 link deliveries. I faced bankruptcy on numerous occasion, with my income and VPs at -10/0 respectively. At one point, I had t spend 19 dollars (!!!) to develop 4 links of track to keep me from having zero delivering potential for the rest of the game (I had to rebuild 2 sections of track on mountain spaces). Luckily, I managed to scrape together enough points to get me by. Only near the end of the game did we start approaching solvency. If memory serves, Shemp won by a point and our scores were 0 and -1. Good times.
We made the assumption that using a two player map meant that the goods growth placeholders started with only 2 goods cubes (since that's what the rules state for 3 players). Considering the impact it had on the game, it's possible it should have been three. I posted a question on BGG... we'll see.
Mr. Jack
Shemp had never played this game before. It's one of the few two player games (that aren't wargames) that I've bothered to hold on to, because I liked it enough to keep even if it gets played rarely.
I played first as Jack, and almost managed to win. It came down to the last round, where Shemp discovered who I was (the cop) and was *just* able to catch me in time.
Shemp tried his hand at Jack next, and did much better than most in their first play. On the first few rounds, I managed to eliminate all but three suspects, but he successfully eluded further narrowing for quite a while. I believe I caught him in the 7th round, which was approximately 3 rounds more than any other first timer I've seen.
Although it's tough to play Jack, this is a very fun game that hits the right note between ease of play and strategy, luck and control. Good game.
Carcassonne: The City
We ended the evening with a oldie. Carcassonne: The City gets very little play in our group, and I've considered trading it away because of that on many occasions. However, I do like it and... it's just such a nice package! I haven't been able to bring myself to do it. Yet.
I went far too aggressive on "farmers" (I know, wrong terminology for this set, but I can't remember what they actually use). I was short meeples throughout the game and missed out on the guard's scoring opportunities in the end. It was a competitive game, with just a few points separating us, but Shemp did win.
As we were packing up The City, we realized we had played much later than we usually do (12:15am!). Whatever, it was fun.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
I sort dead people (Unpublished prototype, Small World)
It was Kozure's pick this week, and Bharmer came by so we were five. He asked that we try out a new game he's working on and we did. As usual, I was surprised at how good his demos are (both from the standpoint of production quality and design quality). For a game that was essentially untested until we played, it worked well. I don't want to say too much about the game in case it's secret, so I'll move onto the next game we played... Small World.
I started out with Commando Trolls. I started out at the top of the board and spread out to the tops of the mountains there. Since trolls keep their lairs after they go into decline, I knew they might be there for a while. Meanwhile, Luch was making a killing on his flying wizards and was deemed the early leader. I switched to Dragon Master Elves and decided I would milk them until my trolls were thinned out. Lucky for me, the others decided they weren't worth the high cost to destroy and nearly all the trolls made it to the end of the game. Kozure's sorcerers suddenly started sweeping across the board and proved to be quite impossible to stop (they are quite powerful in a 5 player game!). Still, my elves made quite a good match with my trolls and I was earning a consistent 15 points or so per turn... somewhat under the radar too thanks to the nasty sorcerers and Giants and orcs running around.
Luch was responsible for handing out the races throughout the game and also returning the defeated tokens. He sorted dead people.
I thought I had it in the bag, but when the scores were counted the spread was quite narrow. I did win, but only by a few points. I guess my slow start nearly caught up with me!
I started out with Commando Trolls. I started out at the top of the board and spread out to the tops of the mountains there. Since trolls keep their lairs after they go into decline, I knew they might be there for a while. Meanwhile, Luch was making a killing on his flying wizards and was deemed the early leader. I switched to Dragon Master Elves and decided I would milk them until my trolls were thinned out. Lucky for me, the others decided they weren't worth the high cost to destroy and nearly all the trolls made it to the end of the game. Kozure's sorcerers suddenly started sweeping across the board and proved to be quite impossible to stop (they are quite powerful in a 5 player game!). Still, my elves made quite a good match with my trolls and I was earning a consistent 15 points or so per turn... somewhat under the radar too thanks to the nasty sorcerers and Giants and orcs running around.
Luch was responsible for handing out the races throughout the game and also returning the defeated tokens. He sorted dead people.
I thought I had it in the bag, but when the scores were counted the spread was quite narrow. I did win, but only by a few points. I guess my slow start nearly caught up with me!
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Corn is red ! (Chaos in the Old World x2)
I'm often on the lookout for games that manage to blend the elegance of euro games with the thematic gameplay of american style games. Although I like the clever mechanics, the streamlined gameplay, etc of the euros there is also a part of me that likes the miniatures and cards and *fun* that the thematically superior american games offer. Unfortunately, I've tried lots of the themey games and have usually been disappointed. They are either too long, too random, too fiddly or they have too much downtime (even some I like, like Fury of Dracula, have these problems).
Chaos in the Old World is a game that was getting a good amount of buzz because it apparently did a great job of providing a thematic experience within the framework of a solid and compelling game system. The length of the game was apparently just 90 minutes, the mechanics were supposed to be a blend of area control and combat. Sounded interesting.
The theme. Players play evil gods (from the Warhammer universe, apparently. I know nothing of it), bent on the ruination of the world. Each represents a specific vice, and uses a combination of magical powers and a variety of demonic creatures to bring about their personal brand of corruption into the world. The game goes to great lengths to bring out the theme in the art (the board is a depiction of stretched skin, for example). The cards back it up with explicit names and illustrations, like the disease god's "Rain of Pus" for example. Kozure wrote a separate post about how some aspects of the theme bothers him, how impersonating a character engaging in acts of such depravity felt wrong to him. Personally, I just find it corny. The surface theme of evils gods doing evil things doesn't strike me as better or worse than any other theme, but I find the specific references to pus, torture, disease and depravity very adolescent (comparable to teenage vampire movies, or just about anything else goth). It almost put me off buying it, but with Christmas gift certificate in hand and many people at BGG talking about it as game of the year, I decided to go for it.
The game does get points for naming one of the gods Khorne (Corn!), and making that god the red one.
Mechanically, the gameplay works with the theme but isn't particularly suggestive of it. Turns start with the revelation of an event card which has an effect on the game for that turn (such as announcing the arrival of elvish corsairs that will do battle with units present in certain spaces). Following this, the turn consists mostly of placing influence on the board (cards and units) and resolving combat between the creatures that have been unleashed there. After the combat has been resolved, VPs are awarded and "ruination" tokens are added to the board based on a kind of area control mechanic.
One of the defining characteristics of the game is that each god has the potential to improve his position by fulfilling a certain condition. Khorne does it by killing opposing creatures, Nurgle does it by corrupting populous areas, etc. At the end of each round, if a god has fulfilled this condition at least once they get to turn a dial on the board one step and receive the reward listed on the dial. If they fulfilled their condition more times than any other god, they can rotate it twice. If the god manages to reach the end of his dial, he wins.
This means that there are a few different path to victory... VPs or dial clicks. Each god has apparently been balanced a little differently. Each god has a different deck of chaos cards (magical powers that are used as effects on the board), different creatures with different stats, etc. The end result is that playing a different god should lead to a different experience.
I'll preface the session reports by saying that there is a small but extremely significant error on the card for one of the gods, Slannesh, which incorrectly describes the condition for dial click advancement. We didn't know about it and that god ended up being extremely unbalanced and won handily both games because of it.
I played Khorne in both sessions. Shemp played Slannesh in both sessions, but Kozure switched from Nurgle to Tzeentch in his second game. In both games, Shemp managed to get a number of noble tokens on the board in hard to get places and was generating dial clicks and corruption like it was going out of style. There were a number of entertaining battles and swings of events, but ultimately it was impossible to stop Slannesh from winning. It was impossible even to come close. Now that we know the correct rules, it will be fun to see how it plays when things are balanced. The god's personalities definitely come through with their abilities, and each player's gameplay is definitely affected by that. I was pure combat, but Shemp was very strong defensively. When Kozure played Tzeentch, he was creating chaos on the board with teleportations and other unexpected magical effects.
Despite the balance problems and some aspects of the theme, I quite enjoyed the game. The theme of gods trying to exert influence on the world through combat and magic comes through well, and the various moving parts do a good job of giving the game a sense of progression and variability without ever feeling fiddly (I'm talking about the hero, noble and skaven tokens, the Old World start of round cards, the god's upgrade abilities, etc). There appears to be more repetition than I'd like in the various card decks, but hopefully there will be enough combinations that will keep things feeling fresh. I also really like having alternate victory conditions in a game (another recent game, Power Struggle, has caught my eye for the same reason). I wouldn't say Chaos in the Old World blew me away, but does a good job at scratching the american style game itch in a euro timeframe and level of complexity.
Chaos in the Old World is a game that was getting a good amount of buzz because it apparently did a great job of providing a thematic experience within the framework of a solid and compelling game system. The length of the game was apparently just 90 minutes, the mechanics were supposed to be a blend of area control and combat. Sounded interesting.
The theme. Players play evil gods (from the Warhammer universe, apparently. I know nothing of it), bent on the ruination of the world. Each represents a specific vice, and uses a combination of magical powers and a variety of demonic creatures to bring about their personal brand of corruption into the world. The game goes to great lengths to bring out the theme in the art (the board is a depiction of stretched skin, for example). The cards back it up with explicit names and illustrations, like the disease god's "Rain of Pus" for example. Kozure wrote a separate post about how some aspects of the theme bothers him, how impersonating a character engaging in acts of such depravity felt wrong to him. Personally, I just find it corny. The surface theme of evils gods doing evil things doesn't strike me as better or worse than any other theme, but I find the specific references to pus, torture, disease and depravity very adolescent (comparable to teenage vampire movies, or just about anything else goth). It almost put me off buying it, but with Christmas gift certificate in hand and many people at BGG talking about it as game of the year, I decided to go for it.
The game does get points for naming one of the gods Khorne (Corn!), and making that god the red one.
Mechanically, the gameplay works with the theme but isn't particularly suggestive of it. Turns start with the revelation of an event card which has an effect on the game for that turn (such as announcing the arrival of elvish corsairs that will do battle with units present in certain spaces). Following this, the turn consists mostly of placing influence on the board (cards and units) and resolving combat between the creatures that have been unleashed there. After the combat has been resolved, VPs are awarded and "ruination" tokens are added to the board based on a kind of area control mechanic.
One of the defining characteristics of the game is that each god has the potential to improve his position by fulfilling a certain condition. Khorne does it by killing opposing creatures, Nurgle does it by corrupting populous areas, etc. At the end of each round, if a god has fulfilled this condition at least once they get to turn a dial on the board one step and receive the reward listed on the dial. If they fulfilled their condition more times than any other god, they can rotate it twice. If the god manages to reach the end of his dial, he wins.
This means that there are a few different path to victory... VPs or dial clicks. Each god has apparently been balanced a little differently. Each god has a different deck of chaos cards (magical powers that are used as effects on the board), different creatures with different stats, etc. The end result is that playing a different god should lead to a different experience.
I'll preface the session reports by saying that there is a small but extremely significant error on the card for one of the gods, Slannesh, which incorrectly describes the condition for dial click advancement. We didn't know about it and that god ended up being extremely unbalanced and won handily both games because of it.
I played Khorne in both sessions. Shemp played Slannesh in both sessions, but Kozure switched from Nurgle to Tzeentch in his second game. In both games, Shemp managed to get a number of noble tokens on the board in hard to get places and was generating dial clicks and corruption like it was going out of style. There were a number of entertaining battles and swings of events, but ultimately it was impossible to stop Slannesh from winning. It was impossible even to come close. Now that we know the correct rules, it will be fun to see how it plays when things are balanced. The god's personalities definitely come through with their abilities, and each player's gameplay is definitely affected by that. I was pure combat, but Shemp was very strong defensively. When Kozure played Tzeentch, he was creating chaos on the board with teleportations and other unexpected magical effects.
Despite the balance problems and some aspects of the theme, I quite enjoyed the game. The theme of gods trying to exert influence on the world through combat and magic comes through well, and the various moving parts do a good job of giving the game a sense of progression and variability without ever feeling fiddly (I'm talking about the hero, noble and skaven tokens, the Old World start of round cards, the god's upgrade abilities, etc). There appears to be more repetition than I'd like in the various card decks, but hopefully there will be enough combinations that will keep things feeling fresh. I also really like having alternate victory conditions in a game (another recent game, Power Struggle, has caught my eye for the same reason). I wouldn't say Chaos in the Old World blew me away, but does a good job at scratching the american style game itch in a euro timeframe and level of complexity.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Buckets of Blood and Showers of... Other... Bodily... Fluids
WARNING: This review contains concepts of a graphic nature which may be unsuitable for younger readers. It also contains unfettered waxing philosophical. Reader discretion advised.
Chaos in the Old World, far from being a game about monkeys running the European Union (*rimshot*), is a area-influence / mild wargame with variable player powers, card-based spells / effects and an action point (in this case "power point") mechanic. Underneath the blood-spattered chrome, this is actually a pretty clever little game.
I don't have time for a thorough review of mechanics and play - I'll leave that to the esteemed Agent Easy should he so wish, but I did want to record for posterity my thoughts on the theme and feel of this thing.
I'm not a squeamish person - I've attended (and remained entirely lucid through) two drug-free births and treated a few pretty bloody wounds in my time. I've watched my share of Tarantino films and various splatter-filled gorefests of movies. One would think I'd be "desensitized" by this point. Be that as it may, Chaos in the Old World makes me feel like I should be handling it with latex gloves and a haz-mat suit to avoid the ichor dripping out of its suppurating infectious wounds.
Once again, the game itself is not bad - I want to be clear - but the idea of drenching an entire continent in blood, pestilence, dark magics and perverted sexual frenzy as a game theme somehow turns my stomach in a way that playing wargames (which, to be quite honest, depict similar, if not quite as exaggerated, forms and degrees of pain and suffering) doesn't.
Board games and video games are, for me, ways of exploring alternate realities and possibilities of existence which (for a multitude of reasons) are impractical, impossible, undesirable, unachievable or sometimes just inconvenient. Quite aside from their mental challenge (and their sense of competition) - the theme of games allow me to stretch my imagination and play with perception and reality.
It's fun to imagine oneself a fighter pilot, business tycoon or even a lowly pre-industrial German farmer. To play at being a god dedicated to chaos and destruction... well, it just feels... wrong to me.
To simultaneously invoke Godwin's Law (yes, yes, I automatically lose) and use gobs of mega-hyperbole, I have a icky sense about this game that I'd imagine I'd feel playing a game about rounding up hidden Jews in France, playing a serial killer in1977 New York, scheduling various sexual escapades in a Caligula-esque court, or distributing smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans.
This is a game where the theme specifically invokes (and revels in) rape, murder, disease, torture, slaughter of peasants, blood sacrifice, insanity, corruption and a host of other unpleasant concepts.
"But it's just a game," you say.
True. Completely true.
Playing Devil's Advocate (almost literally, in this case), I've often felt that understanding what is attractive about evil helps one to know how to combat it. The concept of unbridled lust, wrath, violence, manipulation, random change and the like, represents for me a kind of personal freedom which is incredibly seductive. The idea of giving into all of these impulses of a carnal nature - to kill and torture without remorse, to have frequent and consequence-free sex, to scheme to give oneself power by trickery lies and deceit - appeals to the primeval urges of the amygdala and the crocodile-brain cerebellum and medulla oblongata.
To live as a god - without sin or fear of retribution - is attractive. It's certainly one of the appeals of Existentialism. I'm sure Shemp and I could have all sorts of interesting debate on its ramifications for society and individuals given his and my opposing views on religion and selflessness. In any case, I can see why some people might enjoy the sense of power and freedom that one might derive from playing this game (theme-wise)... I guess I just want to say that I'm a wee bit uncomfortable with it.
We're being evil in this game, kids, and it's not the usual hand-wringing, mad-scientist cackling cartoony-evil. We are trying to literally corrupt and reduce to ruin an entire continent. Capital "E" evil. Is that different that being a cutesy imp-commanding overlord in Dungeon Lords or corrupt government officials keeping down the populace in Junta? Or playing SS troops in Squad Leader? (I love those games, by the way).
Yeah, it's a game. No, I'm not asking that it be banned or people run screaming for the hills or shout "for Heaven's sakem won't someone think of the children?!". I'm not thumping a Bible and saying this offends God.
I do think that people should occasionally stop and think about what's going on in this game, what it says about the fictional world it represents and the real world it... parodies? satirizes?
What we think about good and evil, in short.
Heaven knows there's enough suffering in this world - in Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan, the Phillipines - to want to invent more in our fantasies.
Play this game, if you're interested in it. It's pretty good. But like reading Lolita, The Story of O or Blood Meridian, there are imagined acts and events contained within which are pretty unsettling and world-view challenging.
To quote the internet meme "What is seen cannot be unseen."
Or you can just shrug it off and say "It's just a game."
Chaos in the Old World, far from being a game about monkeys running the European Union (*rimshot*), is a area-influence / mild wargame with variable player powers, card-based spells / effects and an action point (in this case "power point") mechanic. Underneath the blood-spattered chrome, this is actually a pretty clever little game.
I don't have time for a thorough review of mechanics and play - I'll leave that to the esteemed Agent Easy should he so wish, but I did want to record for posterity my thoughts on the theme and feel of this thing.
I'm not a squeamish person - I've attended (and remained entirely lucid through) two drug-free births and treated a few pretty bloody wounds in my time. I've watched my share of Tarantino films and various splatter-filled gorefests of movies. One would think I'd be "desensitized" by this point. Be that as it may, Chaos in the Old World makes me feel like I should be handling it with latex gloves and a haz-mat suit to avoid the ichor dripping out of its suppurating infectious wounds.
Once again, the game itself is not bad - I want to be clear - but the idea of drenching an entire continent in blood, pestilence, dark magics and perverted sexual frenzy as a game theme somehow turns my stomach in a way that playing wargames (which, to be quite honest, depict similar, if not quite as exaggerated, forms and degrees of pain and suffering) doesn't.
Board games and video games are, for me, ways of exploring alternate realities and possibilities of existence which (for a multitude of reasons) are impractical, impossible, undesirable, unachievable or sometimes just inconvenient. Quite aside from their mental challenge (and their sense of competition) - the theme of games allow me to stretch my imagination and play with perception and reality.
It's fun to imagine oneself a fighter pilot, business tycoon or even a lowly pre-industrial German farmer. To play at being a god dedicated to chaos and destruction... well, it just feels... wrong to me.
To simultaneously invoke Godwin's Law (yes, yes, I automatically lose) and use gobs of mega-hyperbole, I have a icky sense about this game that I'd imagine I'd feel playing a game about rounding up hidden Jews in France, playing a serial killer in1977 New York, scheduling various sexual escapades in a Caligula-esque court, or distributing smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans.
This is a game where the theme specifically invokes (and revels in) rape, murder, disease, torture, slaughter of peasants, blood sacrifice, insanity, corruption and a host of other unpleasant concepts.
"But it's just a game," you say.
True. Completely true.
Playing Devil's Advocate (almost literally, in this case), I've often felt that understanding what is attractive about evil helps one to know how to combat it. The concept of unbridled lust, wrath, violence, manipulation, random change and the like, represents for me a kind of personal freedom which is incredibly seductive. The idea of giving into all of these impulses of a carnal nature - to kill and torture without remorse, to have frequent and consequence-free sex, to scheme to give oneself power by trickery lies and deceit - appeals to the primeval urges of the amygdala and the crocodile-brain cerebellum and medulla oblongata.
To live as a god - without sin or fear of retribution - is attractive. It's certainly one of the appeals of Existentialism. I'm sure Shemp and I could have all sorts of interesting debate on its ramifications for society and individuals given his and my opposing views on religion and selflessness. In any case, I can see why some people might enjoy the sense of power and freedom that one might derive from playing this game (theme-wise)... I guess I just want to say that I'm a wee bit uncomfortable with it.
We're being evil in this game, kids, and it's not the usual hand-wringing, mad-scientist cackling cartoony-evil. We are trying to literally corrupt and reduce to ruin an entire continent. Capital "E" evil. Is that different that being a cutesy imp-commanding overlord in Dungeon Lords or corrupt government officials keeping down the populace in Junta? Or playing SS troops in Squad Leader? (I love those games, by the way).
Yeah, it's a game. No, I'm not asking that it be banned or people run screaming for the hills or shout "for Heaven's sakem won't someone think of the children?!". I'm not thumping a Bible and saying this offends God.
I do think that people should occasionally stop and think about what's going on in this game, what it says about the fictional world it represents and the real world it... parodies? satirizes?
What we think about good and evil, in short.
Heaven knows there's enough suffering in this world - in Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan, the Phillipines - to want to invent more in our fantasies.
Play this game, if you're interested in it. It's pretty good. But like reading Lolita, The Story of O or Blood Meridian, there are imagined acts and events contained within which are pretty unsettling and world-view challenging.
To quote the internet meme "What is seen cannot be unseen."
Or you can just shrug it off and say "It's just a game."
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Let the people speak (Die Macher)
I shouldn't have been surprised, but Luch picked Die Macher once again.
What did surprise me, however, is that in the absence of the cheat sheet Bharmer uses there are a number of finer points in the rules that are really hard to keep straight. Die Macher is the definition of a game with many moving parts, and each one has it's own peculiarities that had us spending much of the game combing through the rulebook. The end result was that the pacing suffered and I enjoyed myself a little less than I usually do. I wouldn't rate Die Macher anywhere near my favorite games, but the times I've played have been fun... but we were definitely off our game this week.
Throughout the game Kozure and I had very similar... everything. Points, party membership, platform, etc. By the last quarter of the game, we were all extremely similar and efforts to use media influence to screw other players were hard to pull off because of it. Anyway, Luch won an unusually tight points race (maybe 20 points spread between the 4 of us)
Something funny happened that I was supposed to record, but I've forgotten now. Sorry.
What did surprise me, however, is that in the absence of the cheat sheet Bharmer uses there are a number of finer points in the rules that are really hard to keep straight. Die Macher is the definition of a game with many moving parts, and each one has it's own peculiarities that had us spending much of the game combing through the rulebook. The end result was that the pacing suffered and I enjoyed myself a little less than I usually do. I wouldn't rate Die Macher anywhere near my favorite games, but the times I've played have been fun... but we were definitely off our game this week.
Throughout the game Kozure and I had very similar... everything. Points, party membership, platform, etc. By the last quarter of the game, we were all extremely similar and efforts to use media influence to screw other players were hard to pull off because of it. Anyway, Luch won an unusually tight points race (maybe 20 points spread between the 4 of us)
Something funny happened that I was supposed to record, but I've forgotten now. Sorry.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
How are we doing so far ?
Since we are closing off the decade, I quickly compiled all the games we have played so far since our start in 2004... just to see.
Games played 10 or more times:
16x Carcassonne
16 Ra
15 El Grande
11 Domaine
11 Jungle Speed
11 Power Grid
11 Princes of Florence
11 Puerto Rico
10 High Society
10 Race for the Galaxy
10 Tigris and Ephrates
10 Traders of Genoa
10 Zombie Fluxx
Games played between 5 and 9 times:
9x Glory to Rome
9 Railroad Tycoon
9 Robo-Rally
9 Through the Desert
9 Tikal
8 China
8 Clue: The Great Museum Caper
8 Dominion: Intrigue
8 Pirate's Cove
7 Colossal Arena
7 In the Year of the Dragon
7 Last Night on Earth
7 Modern Art
7 Pandemic
7 RPG
7 Taj Mahal
6 Blokus
6 Blue Moon City
6 Duel of Ages
6 Falling
6 Maharaja
6 Pueblo
6 Way Out West
6 Zero!
5 Agricola
5 Antike
5 Beowulf
5 Betrayal at House on the Hill
5 Bohnanza
5 Castles
5 Citadels
5 cosmic encounter
5 Diamant
5 Excape
5 For Sale!
5 Formula-Motor Racing
5 Fury of Dracula
5 Goa
5 Ideology
5 San Juan
5 Santiago
5 Settlers of Catan
5 Shogun
5 Space Alert
5 Tower of Babel
5 TransEuropa
There are other 88 games we have played between 2 and 4 times. 46 games have been played only once.
That's 718 sessions of 194 different games.
I was thinking I'd do a top 10 list of games to accompany this, but I find that it gets harder and harder to make such a list. My favorite games will change according to the situation (# of players, type of gamers, type of gathering, etc). That being said, if I could choose the ideal gaming group for each # of players, I'd probably pick as follows:
1 player: Ghost Stories, LOTR, Space Alert
2 player: Dungeon Twister, Conflict of Heroes, Duel of Ages
3 player: Ra, Tikal, Galaxy Trucker
4 player: Taj Mahal, Steam, Galaxy Trucker
5 player: El Grande, Steam (Mare Nostrum might also figure here in the future)
6 or more: Robo-Rally (but more often I would choose a party game like Things, Apples to Apples or Time's Up)
If I had to only pick one game, I would still pick El Grande as my absolute favorite.
Games played 10 or more times:
16x Carcassonne
16 Ra
15 El Grande
11 Domaine
11 Jungle Speed
11 Power Grid
11 Princes of Florence
11 Puerto Rico
10 High Society
10 Race for the Galaxy
10 Tigris and Ephrates
10 Traders of Genoa
10 Zombie Fluxx
Games played between 5 and 9 times:
9x Glory to Rome
9 Railroad Tycoon
9 Robo-Rally
9 Through the Desert
9 Tikal
8 China
8 Clue: The Great Museum Caper
8 Dominion: Intrigue
8 Pirate's Cove
7 Colossal Arena
7 In the Year of the Dragon
7 Last Night on Earth
7 Modern Art
7 Pandemic
7 RPG
7 Taj Mahal
6 Blokus
6 Blue Moon City
6 Duel of Ages
6 Falling
6 Maharaja
6 Pueblo
6 Way Out West
6 Zero!
5 Agricola
5 Antike
5 Beowulf
5 Betrayal at House on the Hill
5 Bohnanza
5 Castles
5 Citadels
5 cosmic encounter
5 Diamant
5 Excape
5 For Sale!
5 Formula-Motor Racing
5 Fury of Dracula
5 Goa
5 Ideology
5 San Juan
5 Santiago
5 Settlers of Catan
5 Shogun
5 Space Alert
5 Tower of Babel
5 TransEuropa
There are other 88 games we have played between 2 and 4 times. 46 games have been played only once.
That's 718 sessions of 194 different games.
I was thinking I'd do a top 10 list of games to accompany this, but I find that it gets harder and harder to make such a list. My favorite games will change according to the situation (# of players, type of gamers, type of gathering, etc). That being said, if I could choose the ideal gaming group for each # of players, I'd probably pick as follows:
1 player: Ghost Stories, LOTR, Space Alert
2 player: Dungeon Twister, Conflict of Heroes, Duel of Ages
3 player: Ra, Tikal, Galaxy Trucker
4 player: Taj Mahal, Steam, Galaxy Trucker
5 player: El Grande, Steam (Mare Nostrum might also figure here in the future)
6 or more: Robo-Rally (but more often I would choose a party game like Things, Apples to Apples or Time's Up)
If I had to only pick one game, I would still pick El Grande as my absolute favorite.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
2009 in review
Well, it's that time again. Here are the stats on the games we played this year:
10x Zombie Fluxx
8x Dominion: Intrigue
5x Cosmic Encounter
Excape
Space Alert
4x Steam
Galaxy Trucker
Glory to Rome
In the Year of the Dragon
Pandemic
3x Age of Conan
Last Night on Earth
Through the Ages
Chinatown
2x Die Macher
Roll Through the Ages
Mare Nostrum
Mexica
Caylus
Taj Mahal
Entdecker
Conspiracy
Through the Desert
Pit
Chicago Express
Container
Down in Flames
So Long Sucker!
1x Android
Race for the Galaxy
Ra
The End of the Triumvirate
Antike
Tikal
The Republic of Rome
Railroad Tycoon
Mission: Red Planet
Small World
Elasund
Blue Moon City
Carcassonne
Agricola
El Grande
Beowulf
Illuminati
Le Havre
Shogun
Domaine
Jungle Speed
Fury of Dracula
Maharaja
Battlestar Galactica
That represents 117 sessions of 52 different games (games played with expansions haven't been identified). Having Zombie Fluxx at the top is rather embarrassing, but I will note that those were almost all in one sitting during our Halloween session. Dominion: Intrigue saw multiple plays on multiple days, so that is far more legitimate.
My favorite game this year : Steam
My favorite new filler : Excape
My biggest surprise : Mare Nostrum (reviews on BGG are mixed, but I really enjoyed the two sessions we had)
My favorite expansion : Pandemic - On the Brink
Random notes:
- Vegas Showdown has been very popular with my extended family, as well as Thebes. Neither Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride saw much play this year, though TtR seems like it will have enough legs to see some play for quite a while.
- I acquired Ghost Stories in a math trade somewhat against my better judgement (did I really need another cooperative game?). I'm glad I did. I enjoy playing games solo and this is my favorite so far. Other games that I own that I've enjoyed solo are limited by the fact there are no winning conditions... they are simply a race for VPs. Given a random setup each time it's hard to really compare how you are doing between plays (ex: Agricola/ Race for the Galaxy/ Steam (with expansion map)). Lord of the Rings is great in this regard because you have a concrete goal to achieve. The problem is that it's quite long to setup and play. Ghost Stories has both a concrete winning condition and short play time, yet still manages to offer a different game every time (since the setup is random, the player powers are random, etc). I have no idea how this one will play with a group, but even if it stinks I will be very happy owning this game.
- Conflict of Heroes : Storms of Steel is my only new wargame acquired this year. I did manage to play a session with Kozure that was lots of fun. I like the changes to the rules... the gameplay is more fluid and it feels more wide open than before. The planes work well without changing things to much. Good stuff.
10x Zombie Fluxx
8x Dominion: Intrigue
5x Cosmic Encounter
Excape
Space Alert
4x Steam
Galaxy Trucker
Glory to Rome
In the Year of the Dragon
Pandemic
3x Age of Conan
Last Night on Earth
Through the Ages
Chinatown
2x Die Macher
Roll Through the Ages
Mare Nostrum
Mexica
Caylus
Taj Mahal
Entdecker
Conspiracy
Through the Desert
Pit
Chicago Express
Container
Down in Flames
So Long Sucker!
1x Android
Race for the Galaxy
Ra
The End of the Triumvirate
Antike
Tikal
The Republic of Rome
Railroad Tycoon
Mission: Red Planet
Small World
Elasund
Blue Moon City
Carcassonne
Agricola
El Grande
Beowulf
Illuminati
Le Havre
Shogun
Domaine
Jungle Speed
Fury of Dracula
Maharaja
Battlestar Galactica
That represents 117 sessions of 52 different games (games played with expansions haven't been identified). Having Zombie Fluxx at the top is rather embarrassing, but I will note that those were almost all in one sitting during our Halloween session. Dominion: Intrigue saw multiple plays on multiple days, so that is far more legitimate.
My favorite game this year : Steam
My favorite new filler : Excape
My biggest surprise : Mare Nostrum (reviews on BGG are mixed, but I really enjoyed the two sessions we had)
My favorite expansion : Pandemic - On the Brink
Random notes:
- Vegas Showdown has been very popular with my extended family, as well as Thebes. Neither Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride saw much play this year, though TtR seems like it will have enough legs to see some play for quite a while.
- I acquired Ghost Stories in a math trade somewhat against my better judgement (did I really need another cooperative game?). I'm glad I did. I enjoy playing games solo and this is my favorite so far. Other games that I own that I've enjoyed solo are limited by the fact there are no winning conditions... they are simply a race for VPs. Given a random setup each time it's hard to really compare how you are doing between plays (ex: Agricola/ Race for the Galaxy/ Steam (with expansion map)). Lord of the Rings is great in this regard because you have a concrete goal to achieve. The problem is that it's quite long to setup and play. Ghost Stories has both a concrete winning condition and short play time, yet still manages to offer a different game every time (since the setup is random, the player powers are random, etc). I have no idea how this one will play with a group, but even if it stinks I will be very happy owning this game.
- Conflict of Heroes : Storms of Steel is my only new wargame acquired this year. I did manage to play a session with Kozure that was lots of fun. I like the changes to the rules... the gameplay is more fluid and it feels more wide open than before. The planes work well without changing things to much. Good stuff.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Tastes great, less filling (Cosmic Encounter x2, Steam)
Shemp, Luch and I played this week to the heat of Shemp's brand new furnace.
Although I've read many times that Cosmic Encounter is not at it's best with 3, I was really itching to play it so we tried it anyway. We played with yellow aliens and added in the technology deck, and then only played to 4 planets. I drew Kamikaze, Luch drew Tick-Tock, and Shemp drew the Calculator.
Due to Tick-Tock's ability to win the game when any 8 battles end with a defender win (or on any successful negotiation) both Shemp and I zeroed in pretty quickly on Luch. He lost his alien power pretty quick. Meanwhile, it took a couple of tries before Shemp found any success with his race's ability (call odd or even, if correct, deduct the higher attack power from the lower). I managed a couple of high powered attacks using the kamikaze's ability to sacrifice ships for bonuses but predictably I became low on ships pretty quick. In the end, Shemp was able to string two successful attacks and get to four colonies in short order (the game took only about 40 minutes).
I was torn about my next choice because I had End of the Triumvirate and China in the bag as well, but we play rarely play Cosmic so we played a second session.
In our second game, I drew "Fodder", Luch was "Ameoba" and Shemp was "The Hate". The Hate is brutal. At the start of his turn, Shemp could discard any type of card (attack, negotiate, artifact, etc) and we needed to follow suit or lose 3 ships! Suddenly, Tick-Tock's power seemed very reasonable. We hated the hate. At one point, Luch activated a reincarnator flare and forced Shemp to draw a new race; The Hate became Human. I tried in vain to capitalize on my cool fodder power which allowed me to add to my attack strength any number of cards that were higher the mine but lower than the opponent's. Unfortunately, I kept tying the opponent, which makes it quite impossible.
Shemp came out of nowhere for the win once again.
I really enjoy Cosmic encounter, and I was surprised that three player wasn't as bad as I had heard. Still, it's much better with more, and much better when played to 5 planets. With four, players can theoretically win on their second turn and in essence go from halfway to the finish line in the blink of an eye. It's somewhat unsatisfying. Regardless, Cosmic is an experience game more than anything, and seeing things interact in unexpected ways is quite fun and funny.
Steam
We finished off the evening with what is turning out to be a real favorite of mine: Steam. Since we were three players, we played the USA map and seeded the city growth spaces with two cubes instead of three (as the rules require) and we were off. I kind of expected the game to feel loose with this many players, but I was WRONG. Removing a third of the goods cubes from the City Growth spaces had a dramatic impact on the game. 3-4 rounds from the end we were already looking desperately for potential future deliveries. We were crowding around each other and stealing cubes for opportunistic shipments (taking 2 and giving 2 is much better than allowing your opponent to get 4). It was a tough game which, ironically, lasted much longer than our typical 4 player games have lasted.
Although I think I will eventually give the auction variant (the "Standard" game) a try, I really feel no rush. The tile powers already have a cost (in dollars and future turn order) that values them pretty accurately. If the powers were to be auctioned, I don't think they would end up costing what they should because a number of them are pretty equally decent if you take away the turn order consideration. The one aspect of the "Standard" game that I like that I feel is somewhat missing from the "basic" game is the engine cost (in the "Standard" rules, each player has to pay equal to their engine level at the end of every turn). I like it because it opens up the possibility of being a contender with a lower engine level if you can keep your expenses down, and it forces players to think about "when" they should make the commitment and increase their engine... as it is there is pretty much no reason not to if the opportunity arise.
Anyways, great game. I look forward to trying out my new "Disco Inferno/ Soul Train" map!
Although I've read many times that Cosmic Encounter is not at it's best with 3, I was really itching to play it so we tried it anyway. We played with yellow aliens and added in the technology deck, and then only played to 4 planets. I drew Kamikaze, Luch drew Tick-Tock, and Shemp drew the Calculator.
Due to Tick-Tock's ability to win the game when any 8 battles end with a defender win (or on any successful negotiation) both Shemp and I zeroed in pretty quickly on Luch. He lost his alien power pretty quick. Meanwhile, it took a couple of tries before Shemp found any success with his race's ability (call odd or even, if correct, deduct the higher attack power from the lower). I managed a couple of high powered attacks using the kamikaze's ability to sacrifice ships for bonuses but predictably I became low on ships pretty quick. In the end, Shemp was able to string two successful attacks and get to four colonies in short order (the game took only about 40 minutes).
I was torn about my next choice because I had End of the Triumvirate and China in the bag as well, but we play rarely play Cosmic so we played a second session.
In our second game, I drew "Fodder", Luch was "Ameoba" and Shemp was "The Hate". The Hate is brutal. At the start of his turn, Shemp could discard any type of card (attack, negotiate, artifact, etc) and we needed to follow suit or lose 3 ships! Suddenly, Tick-Tock's power seemed very reasonable. We hated the hate. At one point, Luch activated a reincarnator flare and forced Shemp to draw a new race; The Hate became Human. I tried in vain to capitalize on my cool fodder power which allowed me to add to my attack strength any number of cards that were higher the mine but lower than the opponent's. Unfortunately, I kept tying the opponent, which makes it quite impossible.
Shemp came out of nowhere for the win once again.
I really enjoy Cosmic encounter, and I was surprised that three player wasn't as bad as I had heard. Still, it's much better with more, and much better when played to 5 planets. With four, players can theoretically win on their second turn and in essence go from halfway to the finish line in the blink of an eye. It's somewhat unsatisfying. Regardless, Cosmic is an experience game more than anything, and seeing things interact in unexpected ways is quite fun and funny.
Steam
We finished off the evening with what is turning out to be a real favorite of mine: Steam. Since we were three players, we played the USA map and seeded the city growth spaces with two cubes instead of three (as the rules require) and we were off. I kind of expected the game to feel loose with this many players, but I was WRONG. Removing a third of the goods cubes from the City Growth spaces had a dramatic impact on the game. 3-4 rounds from the end we were already looking desperately for potential future deliveries. We were crowding around each other and stealing cubes for opportunistic shipments (taking 2 and giving 2 is much better than allowing your opponent to get 4). It was a tough game which, ironically, lasted much longer than our typical 4 player games have lasted.
Although I think I will eventually give the auction variant (the "Standard" game) a try, I really feel no rush. The tile powers already have a cost (in dollars and future turn order) that values them pretty accurately. If the powers were to be auctioned, I don't think they would end up costing what they should because a number of them are pretty equally decent if you take away the turn order consideration. The one aspect of the "Standard" game that I like that I feel is somewhat missing from the "basic" game is the engine cost (in the "Standard" rules, each player has to pay equal to their engine level at the end of every turn). I like it because it opens up the possibility of being a contender with a lower engine level if you can keep your expenses down, and it forces players to think about "when" they should make the commitment and increase their engine... as it is there is pretty much no reason not to if the opportunity arise.
Anyways, great game. I look forward to trying out my new "Disco Inferno/ Soul Train" map!
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Let me tell something about my mother... (Android)
Kozure likes the big, sprawling, thematic games. He recently purchased Android and asked that we indulge him with a session, despite the knowledge that the odds we would get through explanation and gameplay in our typical 3.5 hour window were slim. I think he was surprised when we all responded enthusiastically! I, for one, have always been quite curious about the game, though I would never have purchased it based on estimated playtime alone.
I'll say this to start: Android is one of the most ambitious boardgames I can think of. It's trying to interweave a number of different kinds of games into one, and to that it adds a couple of new ones. It's a character driven murder case set in a dystopian future. It's Blade Runner meets Shadowrun meets choose your own adventure.
Thematically, each player plays a character that is involved in trying to solve a murder. Each player is dealt a "hunch" regarding which of the suspects is guilty, and which is innocent. Over the course of the game, a conspiracy unfolds that explains who are the puppet masters behind the scenes, thereby framing the murder as a singular event against a larger picture. Meanwhile, each character has a backstory that develops over the course of the game, where a player needs to resolve a personal crisis and individual actions can lead to facing his/her demons or succumbing to them. As I said, it's very ambitious.
Individually, each aspect of the game is rather simple. The suspects are all known and the characters fly from location to location gathering evidence tokens that are scattered around the board (using a very interesting protractor-type device that measures how far the character's ship can "fly" in a sinlge round). This evidence is then either pinned on a particular subject, or used to uncover the larger conspiracy. If pinned on a suspect, it takes the form of a simple numerical modifier and the character who has the highest positive total at the end of the game is the murderer. There are other minor rules, such as the possibility of alibies, purjery tokens, etc, but they are just further modifiers. In effect, players are building cases against a character (read: framing) rather than solving anything in particular. If, at the end of the game, the character's "hunches" were right he/she will get VPs.
The conspiracy itself is developped by gathering clues, but instead of pinning tokens on suspects a player draws from one of three stacks of puzzle pieces and places it on the board. Each piece shows lines going through it and players are trying to connect the "murder" (in the center of the puzzle) with various conspiracies at the edges of the board. Characters are quite literally "piecing together the puzzle" of the conspiracy in the game. At the end of the game, the conspiracies that have been connected to the murder will provide VPs in certain ways (political favours retained at the end of the game are worth points, etc).
Lastly, the character is presented with a piece of backstory and two possible results based on whether the character can meet certain criteria. For example, a character might have a rocky relationship with his father and need to make amends to achieve a positive result. Throughout the game, the player will play "light" cards that further their personal goals AND play "dark" cards on other player's characters. This is meant to represent the good and bad traits of each character coming out in the story. Once more, the result of this personal backstory is that a number of VPs are awarded based on how successfully it all panned out.
Whew.
It's impossible to really judge this game based on a single play. There is so much going on that it's necessary to just "do stuff" to keep things moving. Only at the end did it all really start to come together in my mind. There is definitely some good stuff in here. In comparison to Arkham Horror, a game of similar complexity and length (and by the same designer and publisher) I liked it much better. The multiple interlocked mechanisms work together well and don't lead to downtime for the sake of downtime (where you spend lots of time moving stuff around, coordinating multiple modifiers, etc). Just as with Age of Conan, it's possible to create a game with lots going on where things feel like they fit together well once you get a grip on it.
My biggest complaint would be that the whole thing resolves in a very abstract way. For all the layers, for all the mechanics, for all the chrome, it's all just a race for VPs after all. Solving the murder isn't really the point. The card play, with the light and dark aspects of a character's personality coming to bear on the story should feel different than any other "take that" style game, but doesn't really. The worst offender, however, is that uncovering the conspiracy doesn't feel like anything at all except a game mechanic... dissapointing thematically even if it offers interesting gameplay possibilities. It's not that any of these things don't work... it's just that the result is muted thematicaly rather than being over the top, which is what I expected after hearing the overview of the game by Kozure. Perhaps there is so much going on that the designer felt the need to abstract the scoring to bring it all together. Perhaps it's because if it were a story, you'd be discovering that there was a murder, then through investigation you'd discover that there was a conspiracy behind it, etc, etc, all the while grappling with your inner demons in a way that would surely play into the story, wereas in Android you are operating in reverse: you know who you want to pin the murder on, you are motivated to reveal a particular combination of conspiracies and the light/dark card play is divorced from any of these other events. Hard to say, but I wish that there were more "Ah-ha" moments in a murder/mystery/ uncover the conspiracy game.
Regardless of the mild dissapointment related to the exploitation of the theme, Android remained a game I enjoyed playing. It works well, weaves an interesting story if you remember to look for it, and plays shorter than I expected (we finished the whole game, with rules explanation, in 4 hours). Maybe in our second play I'll be less bamboozled by everything going on and will be able to appreciate the theme more, who knows?
For the record, I can't remember who won the game. Kozure, I think? I had my guilty hunch become innocent and my innocent hunch be guilty. My rocky relationship with my father ended very well, but I ended up using my best friend and nearly lost her. I came a distant and convincing last.
Still had fun though, and that's what matter.
I'll say this to start: Android is one of the most ambitious boardgames I can think of. It's trying to interweave a number of different kinds of games into one, and to that it adds a couple of new ones. It's a character driven murder case set in a dystopian future. It's Blade Runner meets Shadowrun meets choose your own adventure.
Thematically, each player plays a character that is involved in trying to solve a murder. Each player is dealt a "hunch" regarding which of the suspects is guilty, and which is innocent. Over the course of the game, a conspiracy unfolds that explains who are the puppet masters behind the scenes, thereby framing the murder as a singular event against a larger picture. Meanwhile, each character has a backstory that develops over the course of the game, where a player needs to resolve a personal crisis and individual actions can lead to facing his/her demons or succumbing to them. As I said, it's very ambitious.
Individually, each aspect of the game is rather simple. The suspects are all known and the characters fly from location to location gathering evidence tokens that are scattered around the board (using a very interesting protractor-type device that measures how far the character's ship can "fly" in a sinlge round). This evidence is then either pinned on a particular subject, or used to uncover the larger conspiracy. If pinned on a suspect, it takes the form of a simple numerical modifier and the character who has the highest positive total at the end of the game is the murderer. There are other minor rules, such as the possibility of alibies, purjery tokens, etc, but they are just further modifiers. In effect, players are building cases against a character (read: framing) rather than solving anything in particular. If, at the end of the game, the character's "hunches" were right he/she will get VPs.
The conspiracy itself is developped by gathering clues, but instead of pinning tokens on suspects a player draws from one of three stacks of puzzle pieces and places it on the board. Each piece shows lines going through it and players are trying to connect the "murder" (in the center of the puzzle) with various conspiracies at the edges of the board. Characters are quite literally "piecing together the puzzle" of the conspiracy in the game. At the end of the game, the conspiracies that have been connected to the murder will provide VPs in certain ways (political favours retained at the end of the game are worth points, etc).
Lastly, the character is presented with a piece of backstory and two possible results based on whether the character can meet certain criteria. For example, a character might have a rocky relationship with his father and need to make amends to achieve a positive result. Throughout the game, the player will play "light" cards that further their personal goals AND play "dark" cards on other player's characters. This is meant to represent the good and bad traits of each character coming out in the story. Once more, the result of this personal backstory is that a number of VPs are awarded based on how successfully it all panned out.
Whew.
It's impossible to really judge this game based on a single play. There is so much going on that it's necessary to just "do stuff" to keep things moving. Only at the end did it all really start to come together in my mind. There is definitely some good stuff in here. In comparison to Arkham Horror, a game of similar complexity and length (and by the same designer and publisher) I liked it much better. The multiple interlocked mechanisms work together well and don't lead to downtime for the sake of downtime (where you spend lots of time moving stuff around, coordinating multiple modifiers, etc). Just as with Age of Conan, it's possible to create a game with lots going on where things feel like they fit together well once you get a grip on it.
My biggest complaint would be that the whole thing resolves in a very abstract way. For all the layers, for all the mechanics, for all the chrome, it's all just a race for VPs after all. Solving the murder isn't really the point. The card play, with the light and dark aspects of a character's personality coming to bear on the story should feel different than any other "take that" style game, but doesn't really. The worst offender, however, is that uncovering the conspiracy doesn't feel like anything at all except a game mechanic... dissapointing thematically even if it offers interesting gameplay possibilities. It's not that any of these things don't work... it's just that the result is muted thematicaly rather than being over the top, which is what I expected after hearing the overview of the game by Kozure. Perhaps there is so much going on that the designer felt the need to abstract the scoring to bring it all together. Perhaps it's because if it were a story, you'd be discovering that there was a murder, then through investigation you'd discover that there was a conspiracy behind it, etc, etc, all the while grappling with your inner demons in a way that would surely play into the story, wereas in Android you are operating in reverse: you know who you want to pin the murder on, you are motivated to reveal a particular combination of conspiracies and the light/dark card play is divorced from any of these other events. Hard to say, but I wish that there were more "Ah-ha" moments in a murder/mystery/ uncover the conspiracy game.
Regardless of the mild dissapointment related to the exploitation of the theme, Android remained a game I enjoyed playing. It works well, weaves an interesting story if you remember to look for it, and plays shorter than I expected (we finished the whole game, with rules explanation, in 4 hours). Maybe in our second play I'll be less bamboozled by everything going on and will be able to appreciate the theme more, who knows?
For the record, I can't remember who won the game. Kozure, I think? I had my guilty hunch become innocent and my innocent hunch be guilty. My rocky relationship with my father ended very well, but I ended up using my best friend and nearly lost her. I came a distant and convincing last.
Still had fun though, and that's what matter.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Towards a more balanced bashing of skulls (Age of Conan)
Age of Conan was selected again this week. The most notable difference between this session and previous ones was a lack of runaway leader, which is good. Must be getting better at it, or something. Or, it could be because this was the first time we played with 4 players.
Since we once again chose factions based on our standard player colours, I once again played red. I've only personally played this once before, and that was a while ago, so I had a hard time getting a grasp on the rules for the first half of the game. Luckily, the game has a relatively long period where players can mostly stay out of each other's way, so I had the luxury of picking up most things as I went along. Conan has a hell of a lot of little rules and subsystems, something I normally find annoying. I'm glad to say that despite the fact that I've had the same feeling of being overwhelmed both times I`ve played, by the end of both games I had internalized the moving parts and it plays smoothly once you get to that stage (in other words, all the mechanisms mesh well, and it doesn't feel like work to remember them all while you are playing).
I find the game to be an interesting balance between a RISK variant and a resource management game. You know the others are out there, you know that you will have to deal with them, but in the meantime you have to conquer provinces (a game unto itself), attempt to achieve objectives each round and keep an eye on the endgame bonuses as well (the Crom tokens for fighting and the treasure/ monsters/ women tokens for Conan). It's ultimately an impressive feat that both parts seem interesting and worthwhile. With this type of game, there is always the danger that the player that turtles wins because the other players hurt themselves by fighting each other. I can't really tell if it's an issue here, because none of us tried it. It could be possible that a player would do well just developing uncontested land and controlling Conan as much as possible. Don't know.
The game ended with Kozure crowning Conan, but unfortunately for him he did not have the majority in monsters he thought he had (I had more). I won the game.
So far, each of our sessions have ended with Conan being crowned. I wonder if that's the norm?
Since we once again chose factions based on our standard player colours, I once again played red. I've only personally played this once before, and that was a while ago, so I had a hard time getting a grasp on the rules for the first half of the game. Luckily, the game has a relatively long period where players can mostly stay out of each other's way, so I had the luxury of picking up most things as I went along. Conan has a hell of a lot of little rules and subsystems, something I normally find annoying. I'm glad to say that despite the fact that I've had the same feeling of being overwhelmed both times I`ve played, by the end of both games I had internalized the moving parts and it plays smoothly once you get to that stage (in other words, all the mechanisms mesh well, and it doesn't feel like work to remember them all while you are playing).
I find the game to be an interesting balance between a RISK variant and a resource management game. You know the others are out there, you know that you will have to deal with them, but in the meantime you have to conquer provinces (a game unto itself), attempt to achieve objectives each round and keep an eye on the endgame bonuses as well (the Crom tokens for fighting and the treasure/ monsters/ women tokens for Conan). It's ultimately an impressive feat that both parts seem interesting and worthwhile. With this type of game, there is always the danger that the player that turtles wins because the other players hurt themselves by fighting each other. I can't really tell if it's an issue here, because none of us tried it. It could be possible that a player would do well just developing uncontested land and controlling Conan as much as possible. Don't know.
The game ended with Kozure crowning Conan, but unfortunately for him he did not have the majority in monsters he thought he had (I had more). I won the game.
So far, each of our sessions have ended with Conan being crowned. I wonder if that's the norm?
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