PREvenge (Zooloretto, Perikles, Beowulf, Ra)

PREvenge: The act of exacting revenge for something another player may do in the future.

A new year, another new term which should see much circulation amongst Wagsters in 2008 (2007 was unquestionably the year of "Bharmering", though "Swedish Betrayal" also made a strong showing).

Our first Wags gathering of 2008 was a very good one. We were able to start a little earlier than normal since most of us aren't working this week, so we were able to get a good number of games in.

Zooloretto

Zooloretto is the Spiel de Jares winner for last year. It's a game about building a zoo aimed squarely at a family audience. It's a simple exercise of drawing animal tiles and trying to fill your pens constrained by the fact that each one must be single species. There are various details which add some decision making, such as the fertility of some animals, currency which allows you to swap animals, purchase them from other players, etc. There are also vending stalls which add another method of scoring points. When I was playing it, I was sure it reminded me of something, but couldn't quite place it... Ra maybe? Not sure (I haven't played Coloretto, the card game Zooloretto is based on, so that's not it). The drafting and aquiring of tiles is similar: each round you essentially draw a tile and place it in a truck, or take all the tiles in a truck. You might therefore be tempted to take a truck before it's full just to get a particular tile you really need, or you might find yourself cursing because a tile you want is accompanied by one you don't.

It's a good family game. There are decisions to be made, it's not too complicated. and it's quite attractive (I especially like the box cover). I tried a three player game with my 4.5 year old son and he said he liked it, but it seemed to me to be a bit beyond him so I guess it's probably best suited for 5/6 and up. For a group of adult gamers, it's fun but not mindblowing.

Perikles

Perikles is a game by the same designer as Way Out West and Conquest of the Empire (as well as Age of Steam and many other games which we have not played as a group). His designs tend to be characterized by fairly lengthly play, moderately heavy rules/ strategy and intricate interelationships between the mechanics of the game. They also often walk the line between a german style game and an american style one. Perikles is no different.

Perikles is a game of politics and combat in Greece during the Peloponesian war. The rather sparse board shows 6 greek city states where players vie for political control (using an interesting twist on area majority where the win goes to the player who has the biggest presence AND has been nominated as leader there). Once the leaders of each city-state are determined, those players receive their armies and go to war. Each city-state's army has it's characteristics... Sparta has a powerful army, Athens has an enormous fleet, etc. Once the wars are resolved, players who won battles get VPs and then the leaders of all the city-states have statues erected in their honour. The trick is that every loss a city-state suffers reduces it's prestige, so the endgame VPs those statues give a player go down if it loses. Rinse and repeat 3 times. It all boils down to a game where each decision has an impact on many aspects of the game and, like Way Out West, most decisions that help you will often hurt you elsewhere. A couple of examples:

1) If you are elected leader of a city-state, your presence there will be severely weakened there for the next round.
2) If you were once the leader of a city state, your statue there gives you motivation to help defend it in the future even if it's not currently yours (to keep that city's prestige high)

In our game, the first round saw Luch lead his army to several victories so we were all weary of him as the early leader (my only army was thebes, and I was soundly crushed in three battles so that particular already unspectacular army became even worse). The second round was mostly "bash Athens" due to the battles we drew. By the end of the that round, it became clear that Shemp's many leaders on the board would net him many points unless those cities were handed a few defeats before the end of the game. We did what we could, but Shemp prevailed (and a key win in that last round with the odds slightly against him didn't help). PREvenge, the title of the blog, was used when Shemp decided to screw Luch through a political nomination in anticipation of a move he was sure Luch would do to him. Honestly, as much as we laughed about the concept of "PREvenge", I can't remember if his hunch was right.

The group loved this game... I was pretty unsure about the purchase after reading the rules (it was an impulse buy at the Fantasy Flight christmas sale for $10), so it was a bit of a relief to actually play it. Trying to piece together how to place your influence in the cities, where to nominate yourself, how to try and get weak opponents nominated against you, deciding which battles to fight, which to defend, etc, makes for a deep and satisfying puzzler that succesfully walks the line between euro strategy and wargame immersion. Personally, I was engrossed in a similar way that I tend to get with El Grande, but on a somewhat larger scale (that's a compliment). At 2-3 hours, we won't be playing that often, but I get the feeling we'll be seeing it again in the not too distant future.

We ended the evening with a game of Beowulf which Kozure won (man, oh man where the risks not on my side!). Looks like he may have regained the knack that allowed him to dominate us for the first few games... Despite my awful showing, I still really enjoy this game. I'm glad I ignored the negative hype and bought it.

Finally, we ended with a very fun session of Ra. Kozure also won this one after a lengthy drought.

A great beginning to the new year. Here's hoping it's a good one.