Betrayed by Bugs, Snakes and Bad Art

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We'll see next time...

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

Clever people, those Romans.

They knew how to create an empire and hold it together.

This post will be a hopelessly inadequate report on TWO sessions spent finishing our epic, long format game of Civilization. The first session has been ably logged by Kozure here, and also by Easy, here.

Our second session began with the Medeival Age, and was very chaotic. The previous posts mention the barreness of the world that we were playing in, and it led some of the newer players to unwise military conflict. While the Shempezuelans and the Causcausians made unwise military forays (resulting in handicapping losses) the Kozurians and Tilitumblers were largely peaceful, trading with each other, expanding, and racking up a huge lead in terms of victory points. The Easylanders were hemmed in to a tight territory, geographically, and forced to pour resources into defending their land against the Shempezuelans, meaning that they couldn't get an effective expansion strategy going. The second session ended about halfway through the gunpowder age, and had Kozure and Tili well in front, with scores in the mid to high twenties, and the other three players clustered with scores in the low to mid teens.

Sometime in the two week gap between session two and three, the weak players with no resources realized that fighting amongst themselves would not work, so the third session became a game of "try to pull down the leaders", that being the only way to get any resources. Unfortunately for Kozure, Tili was more advantageously located, and he suffered the brunt of this tear-down-the-leader approach. Tili was able to end the game with a diplomatic victory, and fifty-some victory points. Shemp came second in the low thirties, so it was an extremely convincing victory for largely staying out of conflict with the other civilizations. Thanks to some highly unlucky rolling, Kozure dropped to third place (high twenties), followed by Easy (teens) and ????, with nine.

Whew. Now for comments on the gameplay.

1) The fact that Tili had a vast lead, and was able to purchase the UN card resulted in a very strange last round, where each player went all out on combat, knowing that there was little to lose. This means that the final standings didn't really reflect what would happen if Tili's lead hadn't been quite so gigantic.

2) I think all players would agree that there really needs to be some better way to distinguish the units of different ages from each other. They just look too similar at a glance, and this resulted in some (thankfully hilariously) one-sided conflicts. Coloured bases perhaps? Dots indicating age? I'm not sure what, but some improvement here would smooth out some of the rough patches of the game, for sure. The obsolesence mechanic itself is great, and allows for some real ups and downs in the course of each civilization's history. Just needs a bit of cosmetic tweaking to make things easier, in my opinion.

3) We also need to come up with some kind of chart showing which military units are current and which city improvements are available, and who should get the credit for each. Everyone had to ask the questions too many times.

4) I think that a lot of the problems players had with resource scarcity were particular to this session, and therefore not really a game mechanic problem. Playing again would be the only way to test this. I would note that Tili was the only player to place her two initial settlers on different continents from each other. It didn't work out initially, but it did give her a better shot at being near whichever lands turned out to be productive. I think that is a tactic to consider for next time.

5) This is all really just nit-picking. I loved the epic sweep of the game, and would gladly play again...in a couple of months for an interrupted game, or on a day off. Unlike some other players, I would want to stick with a four-age game, because I feel like we didn't really get to see the modern age play out. Things were truncated by the Diplomatic victory.

6) I just accquired and started to play the computer game that started it all: Civilization One! Seems OK, but not as fun as the board game, since there is no human interaction.

There you have it.

Viva Shempezuela!, and looking forward to the comments. This game deserves them.

Duel of Ages... The Theme!

In sharp contrast to the last two weeks (both spent playing one game of Civilization, which is still unfinished), last night we played 4, count 'em, 4 different games! While Duel of Ages was the theme, we didn't actually play that game... instead, I chose 1 game suited to each of the four eras (Ancient, colonial, modern and future).

For Ancient, we played Citadels (with the "Artist" from the expansion thrown in). This is a fun game which I always wish we could play more often. True, something seems missing (we actually discussed that the game would feel more satisfying if the "district" cards somehow had more character or functions... leading us to the interesting possibility of combine Citadels with a Princes of Florence type board). This session saw Kozure spend most of the game as the King, Shemp and I in between and Hapi screwed as the last player of almost every hand. Not surprisingly, he found it hard to find his footing while the rest of us battled for first. In the end, Kozure won (he was very excited becasue he had never one at this one) by the narrowest of margins (Kozure 28, Easy 27, Shemp 26, Hapi 18). I'd say that the addition of the artist had very little impact on the game. I'd probably go back to the original set for the next game.

For Colonial, we played Bang with the High Noon expansion. Even though I still enjoy this game, it's beginning to wear on me. I find that the game can go on for a little too long. The High Noon expansion definitely shakes things up, but there;s still lag. Shemp, as the renegade, won the game. I'd never seen the renegade win before!

For modern, we played Deadwood. Always a good time, I'd say this is EASILY the best Cheap Ass Game. The cards, roles and combinations thereof had us laughing the whole time, and yet there's just enough of an actual game in there to keep it interesting. Kozure managed to become the master thespian early in the game (seriously outclassing our 1 and 2s with his 5). Despite Shemp best efforts at falling off a roof, Kozure wallopped us in the end (he had something like twice the money of the second best player... Over $80 bucks, at any rate).

For Future, we played Robo Rally. This one was a bit of a miscalculation on my part. True, we only used two boards, but we placed 4 flags. While the three other games clocked in at 45 min. to 1 Hour each, this one took 2. Still, it was a highly entertaining game. A Misshap on my first turn sent my poor little robot on an unplanned tour of the wrong conveyor belts, where he miraculously survived a ride along the edge of the board only to be crushed in the 5th register. I was behind, but not out... Luckily, Hapi did what he does best (which is playing to screw others rather than try to win), screwing himself at the same time as Shemp and Kozure. After what had to be the most full contact, unpredictable and uncontrollable rounds I had ever seen in the game (we're talking three robot trains, massive front and back laser fire, reprogramed robots, robots spending a good chunk of the game with frozen registers, and howitzer fire, Oh My!), I managed to slip through and get quite a wide lead. Sadly (for me), I made another major mistake which sent me leaping off the board. Nearing midnight, Kozure and Hapi were playing chicken at the third flag while Shemp and I were racing for the last flag but he was more successful and beat me pretty easily. Not bad, since he was the only one who had never played before!

And now... Back to Civilization !