Hello, Goodbye (Elasund, Blue Moon City, Carcassonne)

With Kozure on vacation, and Bharmer not attending this week, we were left with three players: myself, Shemp and Luch. Although Kozure seems to dislike picking for three, I certainly don't mind as there are a number of games for 3 that I love playing. I settled on a new aquisition through the latest Toronto area math trade (Elasund), an game I wanted to play to see if I felt like keeping (Blue Moon City) and an old favorite (Carcassonne, with the Traders and Builders expansion).

Elasund

Elasund is part of the Catan Adventures line by Klaus Teuber. I haven't played the first of the series, Candamir, and I'm decidedly lukewarm to Settlers of Catan, so what would make me want to give this game a chance? Well, I had heard god things from trusted sources (JayWowzer had recommended it, and Chris Farrell likes it). Also, I wasn't aware of it's lineage when I traded for it. I was a little concerned when I read the rules and realized just how much the core mechanics reminded me of Settlers. Oh well, worth a shot anyways...

We set it up, I explained the rules, and we started. Elasund is a game about building up the first city of Catan. The board represents a grid onto which the buidlings that make up the city will be placed (interestingly, before buildings can be built, building permits need to be placed). A wall surrounds the city, and merchant docks line the western edge. Each turn, the acting player rolls two six-sided dice to see which docks the merchants will visit. Any buildings in that row pay the player that built it a reward of either gold or influence cards. Over the course of the game, players will gain victory points by building certain buildings, participating in the construction of the church, building city walls and/or increasing their standing on the windmill track (that's surely not it's name, but whatever). As in Settlers, placing buildings in the spots that increase their chances of paying out is very important. When a "7" is rolled, the merchant becomes a pirate and steals from another player. Another similarity: the winning condition is that the first player to 10 VPs is the winner. There are other similarities, but it's not worth going on about them.

Despite the similar core mechanics, the game doesn't really feel like Settlers at all. Probably the biggest difference is that there is a real mean streak to the game: It is possible over the course of the game to build over other player's buildings, to knock them back on the windmill chart, to interfere with their plans. From this perspective, I would say the game is more similar to Domaine in competitive feel.

As we played through the first few rounds, I wasn't really sure what to make of it. Every round I would take my actions, and then see what happened. It took until the second half of the game, when the board started filling up and buildings started gettting bulldozed, and the church started getting built that I really started getting a feel for the possibilities. Oddly, Shemp suddenly announced that he finally was starting to figure out what was going on at the same time I was thinking it. I'm still a little perplexed about what it was that made us feel this way, because it's not overly complex. I curious to see if Kozure feels the same way.

Anyway, here are a few things that dawned on me as we played:

1) The windmill track is best used to get a few last points at the end of the game. Buildings on those spaces are likely to get built over, so any advancement is temporary at best.
2) There are some other ways of playing offensively other than building over other player's buildings. Placing a building permit that equals or exceeds those of another player can really mess up his/her plans because they no longer control the building site.
3) Money and resources are so tight that any unexpected expense can force a player to re-evaluate his/her plans. If you can put a building permit in an intimidating place, the cost of upgrading it might be enough to make the player lose a couple of turns.
4) The "0" permit is your friend. Sure, it's easy for another player to outgun you, but you avoid spending resources every time you place it. Those can really add up.

In our game I ended up winning by building a big 2vp building along the coast (where the windmills necessary to move up the track are located), along with a number of other buildings, some wall VPs and some windmill track ones. It was fairly exciting, though, because it was down to a matter of turns before myself or Shemp would manage to place our last cube. Luch gave me a setback by placing a strategic building permit, but it wasn't enough to keep me down... Luch unfortunately fell behind because he built a large building within the footprint of the church and it was eventually booted it off the table.

So, in the end I liked it. Not sure it's fantastic, but I felt pretty happy with it near the end. If I had any complaints, it's that it's fairly luck dependent. We'll see how it fares with time.

Blue Moon City

When I first played this game, and for many sessions afterwards, I've really enjoyed it for the clever card play it made possible. Lately, in never comes off the shelf, and I realized that I might have "played it through". I figured we'd try it again to confirm my suspicions... Now I know that even though I do still like it, I won't really miss it if I traded it away.

Shemp won this game by a fair margin.

Carcassonne

It was nice to give some table time to this old classic (which also happens to be a game Kozure dislikes). My favorite way to play is with the Inns and Cathedrals + Traders and Builders, with a handful of tiles removed at the start of the game.

We opted to do "speed play", as we often do. Certain aspects of the game suffer disproportionally when we try this, for example very few farmers get placed and once you start a road or city, it's less likely to get contested.

I got the majority in all three resources, which netted me 30 points. Although I was behind in the overall counting, the little boost those majorities gave me enough points to win.

Random games (Blue Moon City, Goa, Transeuropa, Carcassonne)

With Bharmer and Kozure out this week, I was glad I had packed my bag with a number of games that were good at three.

Blue Moon City

I explained the rules to Shemp, and then he proceeded to show US how the game is played. Clearly, the man has a knack for the it because as much as luck has a big role in the game, strategy is very important and he really seemed like he knew what he was doing (he avoided wasting cards on getting scales when he couldn't win the majority, for example, wich is a very common mistake). In the final turns of the game, Shemp was one offering from winning with a pile of crystals in front of him. He skipped the obelisk and went to a building, so he obviously was just short one or two. I was also one offering away, but quite a bit short on crystals. Lucky for me, Luch forced the payout of scales on his turn and I was the big beneficiary. With my newfound wealth, I managed to swoop in for the win. Shemp should have won, but such is luck. This is my favorite middleweight game right now, always extremely enjoyable. Too bad it maxes out at 4 players.

Goa

And another fine game which is limited to 4. Shemp hadn't played this one either so we explained it and got underway (in record time, too). I couldn't really get things working right... always short one or two actions from doing what I wanted properly. Worst of all, Luch kept getting to level 4 in each track just before I would! He won quite handily, with all four islands discovered and a well advanced set of tracks. I'll have to look it up, but I think Luch creamed us last time we played this too. I guess everyone has a inclination for certain games.

Transeuropa

Since we had about 1/2 hour left, we brought out Shemp's copy of Transeuropa. I've played Transamerica quite often, but not this version. I can't say it felt substantially different, with the sole exception that some of the Nordic countries seem particularly hard to get to. Luch took a major dive on the first round, bringing him to within 1 point of losing. Then, as this game often does, things flipped pretty dramatically in the following rounds and I wound up losing big time (I think Shemp and Luch tied for the win)

Carcassonne

With 10 minutes left, we opted for speed Carcassonne. As soon as you play a tile, you grab your next one. As soon as it's your turn, you must play. This is one for the Conan brain, and apparently I don't have one... I SUCKED. I beleive I was lapped by both players. Oh well! (the end of the game comes REAL FAST with just the base tiles). I think Shemp won on the strength of his farmers. Game over in 10 minutes flat.

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."

3 Players. 3 Games. (Quo Vadis? x2, Antike, Carcassonne x2)

It was just Shemp, luch and I this Wednesday. I picked Antike and Quo Vadis? since they were recent acquisitions... though I wasn't at all sure that either would work well at that number.

Quo Vadis?

Quo Vadis? is a pure negotiation game from Reiner Knizia... not his usual style of game. Roman politicians are vying for election into the senate, and only sharp negotiation and good positional strategy can get them there.

The board is a rather bland depiction of a series of committees, each between 1 and 5 "seats" large. Players have a series of politicians, which they must place in low committees in the hopes of getting promoted into higher ones... ultimately leading to the senate. Along the path to the higher committees, "laurel" tokens are acquired by politicians. The winner is the player who has the most laurels at once the senate is full, so long as that player has at least one politician in the senate.

The meat of the game lies in getting your politicians promoted. The only way for anyone to move ahead is to be voted up, so either that player must already have a majority in the committee or he/she must convince others to vote in their favour. Laurel tokens can be used as a bribe, promises to vote another player's politician up in a different committee can be made, or any other arrangement that can be conceived of can be proposed. As an additional sweetener, anyone who votes for another player gets a free laurel.

The result is a very quick game of negotiation and positional strategy which I found quite engaging despite the fact that it's quite likely to be much better at 4 or 5 players than it was at 3.

We played two rounds. In the both games, Shemp displayed much better negotiation skills than ours and won. Not only did he manage to gain the upper hand in most of the deals, but he did an excellent job of situating himself in chains of committees which ensured him good pathways to the top (not to mention getting many of those "free laurels" by being at the right place at the right time and lending a vote to another player). The deals never got terribly creative (most involved simple laurel payments or promises of votes), but I'm looking forward to seeing how a full group plays out.

Antike

This was our first play of Antike at 3. I've got the second edition, which lowered the winning conditions from 12 to 10 for three players. I'm glad that rule got changed, because getting to 10 seemed about right (it would otherwise grind to a halt as all players armed up for some sort of enormous temple bashing escapade).

We played on the english board, and I started near the center with Luch at the West and Shemp in the South-East. I tried to get boats out and a few temples early on. It always seemed that Luch and Shemp were ahead of me, as both were sending masses of boats and troops out while I seemed to accomplish little. Luch was crowding my areas pretty quickly, and I was forced to abandon my aim to get 2 points in ships early... . After getting my first 7 sea zones, I started focusing on marble and temple building. Shemp's empire was vast and pretty much unchallenged, with a few temples well guarded at the back. It became clear at the end of the game that Luch was going to win on a particular round by building the last temple he needed. I tried to fan out my boats in order to finally get to 14 sea zones and score my last point but didn't succeed. Shemp was nearly resigned to a loss, since he was down 2 points, when he realized he had he was able to knock out two temples I had built previously. He did exactly that and snatched victory from under Luch's nose.

I thought three player Antike was quite good (using the 2nd edition rules). The board is definitely more open, but there was still no time to waste in grabbing the VPs... I felt continuously under the gun to be efficient and grab what I needed as soon as I could. As in our previous sessions, combat didn't play a major role until the very end of the game. Turns go by extremely quickly, and the game continues to fulfill it's promise to deliver a satisfying civilization building experience in approximately 1 1/2 hours.

We finished up the evening with two quick games of Carcasssonne. Base Carc can easily be played in 15 minutes if players draw their tiles ahead of time, and is quite enjoyable this way. Not much to say except that the second game probably had the fewest completed cities that I've ever seen (three?). I won both games, denying Shemp the clean sweep for the evening.

Big is IN

Wednesday this week found us down a player once more, as Kozure was unable to attend. What works with three? Not too much in my collection, as it turns out. I didn't feel like Puerto Rico, and we had just played Robo-Rally (I am going to make it a point to make my next purchase 3 player friendly...) Anyway, I settled on a jumbo sized game of Carcassonne (with EVERY expansion included) to start out the evening. I have also had an itch to play Duel of Ages for quite a while now, so I was determined to make it work for three (DoA says it's a game for 2-16 players, but in fact the game consists strictly of two teams... a 3 player game would force 1 player to play twice as many characters as the others... far from ideal).

Started with Carc. I really like this game, because it's exactly as complex and strategic as you want to make it (sure, it's random... but it works for what it is) . With all expansions in, it's got quite a lot going on! We played with: "The River","The King and Scout", "The Count of Carcassonne", "Inns and Cathedrals", "Traders and Builders" and "The Princess and the Dragon" (As far as I know, that is every expansion available). Since we don't seem to get around to playing any one game really often, remembering all the rules for each expansion was a little daunting (particularly "The Count" and "The Princess and the Dragon"). What this mega game really pointed out, for me, is how well most of these expansions ratchet up the strategy just a little bit at a time. There are two, however, which are exceptions: The Count is fairly complex and fiddly in comparison to most, but luckily I like what it adds. The same can't be said for "The Prncess and the Dragon". The rules this adds are interesting in principle (various ways of getting meeples off the board, along with a method to get meeples into unfinished cities/roads/cloisters), but in practice it doesn't quite fit. I've said before that I felt this expansion would probably best be played on it's own, and this session backs that up. The fairy, in particular, is a pain to keep track of with so much going on. I'd love to try this mega-Carc again sometime soon, but without "The Princess and the Dragon", I think it would be much better.

For the record, I made an effort to go for goods and large cities (to snag the King). I did manage to get the majority in 2 of 3 goods, but unfortunately, Luch managed to beat me out for every large city or road I would try to build! In the end, he won by quite a large margin (I find that the more expansions we play with, the larger the spread in scores). This didn't seem to be Shemp's night... he had a hard time getting things going and came in last.

Next up was Duel of Ages.I checked out the official website and downloaded their 3-4 player variant rules (termed "Cutthroat Rules") and decided to give them a try. How did it go? Great! The rules add minor changes which effectively eliminate many of the problems inherent in any 3 player free for all battle game (two fight it out, and the third swoops in to win, or two gang up on the third, leaving that player no chance).

The changes are fairly simple: 2 players form a temporary alliance, and the third is termed the "Loner". The loner gets an additional character+ 2 equipment to start, but is otherwise at a disadvantage due to fewer characters compared to the alliance. The "Alliance" take their turn as though they were 1 team (i.e., they both move, then they both battle, then they both do challenges, etc). They are considered allies as far as special powers, combat and movement go. HOWEVER, the twist is that once a player manages to kill one of the Loner's characters, that player becomes the NEW Loner,drawing a new character+2 equipment at the start of his/ her next turn (the previous Loner joins forces with the third player in the Alliance). This interesting mechanic constantly shifts the forces of power, keeps the target moving to avoid kingmaker problems and creates interesting temporary alliances. There are also changes in the scoring which gives diminishing points for placing 1st or 2nd in the labyrinths.

We played a simple game, including only the basic labyrinths and no special keys. We used 5 characters apiece (4 might have been better). I started out as the Loner, and drew a competent mix of fast and powerful characters. I was fairly successful in completing challenges (drawing far too many mounts than I needed as rewards). In time, my Robin Hood was killed and Luch took over as loner. I did eventually get the title back (drawing the pile of WeeWaks for my trouble), and had a very successful finish with a score of 13-3-1 (or something like that).

Unfortunately, this session didn't feature too many really memorable moments. The game mostly involved each player making straight lines to their labyrinths, with a few combats along the way. Not sure why it didn't click, but I'm not going to blame the 3 player variant, as I'm quite happy with how that turned out.

WAGS for beginners

There were two themes at play last night: Games which are good for beginners AND games which are "nearly new" (which is to say that they are new, but related to other games we have already played).

Games in question: Ticket to Ride:Europe, Carcassonne Princess and the Dragon and High Society.

Ticket to Ride:Europe was up first. When we played the original some time ago, I felt that it was a good game but I had very little urge to play it again. I could understand it's popularity... it's beautiful, it's pretty easy to understand and also fairly quick. On the other hand, game play was a little TOO simple, and it became clear fairly quickly that going for the long routes was the way to go strategically. When this new edition came out, I had heard that the game was pretty much the same but it had been tweaked to make it more tense and more strategic while maintaining the fun and simplicity.

Did it work?

Somewhat.

In most ways, I liked it better. For the curious, here's a break down of the changes:

Tickets: Players are dealt one long route and 3 short routes to start the game, rather than 4 pure randomly drawn cards. This levels the playing field, which is a good thing, because getting no long routes in the original would put that players at a serious disadvantage.

Routes: There are far more single routes. and far more short routes. This made it more important to grab the routes you needed as soon as you could. The larger number of short routes prevents players from winning the game by just hoarding cards and claiming the long routes.

Stations: Presumably to balance the newfound difficulty in claiming routes, stations were introduced. Their purpose is to allow a player to use a piece of track they failed to claim, BUT ONLY FOR PURPOSES OF CLAIMING TICKETS AT THE END. The cost for placing one is high... 4 victory points and a card for the first, 4 plus a pair for the second one and 4+ a triple for the last. Still, if it completes a lucrative ticket it's certainly worth it. A few of these were built during our game, and it's interesting how the dynamic of shorter single routes mixed with the stations affect the planning and blocking strategies in the game. I found myself on more than one occasion calculating how long I could leave certain destinations open based on whether there were two routes vs one, and whether I could afford a station there if I got beat to the punch.

Tunnels,: Any route highlighted by a black outline is a "tunnel". These routes are less predictable than normal routes... a player trying to claim one must have all the required cards and then draw 3 more. If any of the drawn cards match the colour of the route, that many more cards must be played or the player loses their turn and fail to claim the route.

Ferries (no Shemp, not Fairies): These are, predicably, water routes and are always gray. Normally, a gray route can use any colour, but a ferry REQUIRES that a certain number of locomotive cards be used. This raises the value of the locomotive (wild) cards and means they actually get drawn from the face up pile once in a while!

That pretty much sums up the changes. Overall, it felt more similar to the original than I expected. On one hand, Ferries and tunnels feel a little like "novelty"... not really significant strategic changes. One the other, the more restricted layout makes the competition more intense for the routes (but the stations keep it from being too easy to block your opponents). It's an overall improvement, but not a drastic one. I'll be looking forward to playing this one with people who aren't into heavy games (I'd still pick Pirate' Cove as my favorite Days of Wonder game, however... but this one IS more approachable). Luch wound up beating us all by a hair, through a combination of grabbing the longest route and fulfilling all his tickets. Two things sunk me to second: 1)I played my last move conservatively by going for the 6 segment tunnel when I had an excellent chance of completing the eight segment one, and 2) I drew a ticket late in the game which I didn't fulfill. Either one of those decisions, done differently, would have won me the game!

Two more observations (Shemp's, actually): First, the mechanics of the game mean that the board's change to shorter routes leads to a slightly longer game (the game ends once a player gets down to two or less trains, which takes longer when most turns involve placing only 2 or 3 trains). Second, the East half of the board, which is less congested than the west, seems like a better bet to go for (for that reason)It certainly worked for Luch, who was largely uncontested in that end while he quickly built his ridiculously long route. Hmmm. We'll have to try it againt to test that theory!

Carcassonne, the Princess and the Dragon, is the latest in the long list of expansions for this WAGS favorite. It transports the game to a place of magic and creatures (this is not necessarily somewhere most Carcassonne players wanted to go) In truth, the expansion should have read: Carcassonne "let's get the complacent Meeples off the board", as most of the mechanics revolve around doing just that.

Let's see, the game adds a dragon which roams around the board eating Meeples and a princess which runs off with the Knights in the cities. A "Teleportation" devices allows a player to place their meeple at any legal space on the board (the rest of the group seemed off-put by these, but I felt it was perfectly reasonable as part of an expansion which seems to go out of it's way to leave partially completed cities and roads all around). Finally, the fairy protects the Meeple it accompanies from the dragon, and gives the last player to move it extra points in various ways (good luck points?). Bottom line: It's much harder to build large cities and long roads, and much harder to maintain farmers until the end.

Over the course of the game, I beleive everyone got knights stolen and meeples eaten. Lucky for me, a central farmer made it to the end and gave me a pile of points at the endgame. We had a running joke going with the dragon and fairy at one end of the board earning that part of town the title of "Flameborrough" (a bad double entendre which caused all of us, but Shemp in particular, to revert to the maturity level of a 12 year old and giggle)

Conclusion: the expansion is fun enough, but I don't think it will get much play time... due to it's lukewarm reception.

And High Society? I love it. Lot's of fun. One thing worth mentioning: We had a round were we all scored 0! That's pretty embarrassing. I almost called the Blog "Orange Bot: WAGS Nemesis", in honour of the orange non-player car which almost beat everyone else at the last game of Formula Motor Racing.

Ticket to Ride: Europe: 7.5
Carcassonne Princess and Dragon: 6

The post formerly known as ""

For no particular reason, things last night were a little ... different.
We were all being a little silly...

Our first game of Carcassonne took a beating for it.

We threw in the "King and Scout" and "Inns and Cathedrals" expansions. Kozure was siting out, but HilzaCanuck (the lovely better half of our very own Shemp Duchamp) joined in. The game was sort of a disaster from the get go. I can't explain it, but between a constant stream of bad jokes and strange tangents we wound up with the most tortured landscape I've ever seen in the game. Almost nothing was finished. To put things in perspective, just before scoring the final endgame points (King/Scout, farmers,etc) the average score was roughly 12! It was sad.

Then, we moved on to ToG. Things got serious real quick.
Whereas our earlier games were characterized by lots of bidding and rash spending, this game was decidely stingy. If a bid made it ALL THE WAY to 20, well that was an event. Entire turns went with only one bid, and offers for 5 or 10 were the rule. In fact, if any player ever got the sense that you actually WANTED a certain action, there was no way in hell you'd get it. I seem to remember that we broke the bank last game.. we did NOT this time.
I started the game with the idea that I would concentrate on delivering messages, but I simply couldn't make it work. I then tried to gather a few Privilege cards for endgame dollars, but again didn't get too far (I managed 5). ToG is a hard game to control, and the more I play it, the more it seems like the kind of game where the player who can make most of the moment will come out on top. Each individual deal is more important than the over reaching strategy. Missing a turn is deadly, and not maximizing your profits as the owner of the tower is even worse.
If there's a sure fire way to win this one, I don't know it! (and my final score, tied for last, shows that pretty clearly)

We closed of with a second game of Carcassonne. This time we added "The Count" expansion to the mix. Where "King and Scout" expansion seemed to steal an idea from Settlers of Catan (Longest Road, Biggest City), "The Count" steals from El Grande. "The Count" expansion adds the City of Carcassonne as the starting point for the game (It is 3 tiles high and 4 tiles wide). A purple marker, the Count, is positioned on one of 4 stations. Whenever a player scores points for another player, without scoring any for him(her)self, that player may place a follower into a location in the city. Later, when something is scored (road, city, cloister or farm), any Meeples in the appropriate section of the city can be "parachuted in" to help win the majority (similarly to the Castillo in El Grande). Another similarity to El Grande: The count prevents any Meeples from entering or leaving the area he is in.
This expansion REALLY changes the feel of the game. Weighing the pros and cons of helping other players in order to put Meeples into the city is not easy. Planning ahead to make sure you won't suddenly be outnumbered by an other player's cavalry is not easy. Farmers, in particular, a very powerful in the city, since they aren't locked to a specific place they are easy toto send to the farms which need them the most (of course, this is easily offset by the danger of losing them all if the Count is in their space at the end of the game). Fun addition, but certainly not a light one. Good for people who want to ratchet up the strategy in the game.

Until next time...

Shempuzelans are GREAT!

Last night the impossible happened.

Hell froze over.

Pigs Flew.

The Shempuzelans and the Easylanders buried the hatchet.

At a critical point in last night's game of Lord of the Rings Risk, they came to an agreement to not repeat old mistakes... to avoid fighting each other ceaselessly and recklessly... to instead form a pact and unleash a power heretofore unknown upon the the others (who routinely benefit from our squabling). Kozure and Luch's response? Ummm, they formed a pact too. No matter! Luch's forces wer already nearly decimated. Victory was at hand for the Shempo-Easy alliance!

However, luck being such an important part of this game, the tides didn't turn evenly. While both the Easylanders and Shempuzelans rolled over their hapless opponents (Luch was eliminated entirely on the second last round), Kozure, with the last turn of the game, piled up his forces for ONE LAST MARCH. Sadly for the Shempuzelans, it was horribly effective. They lost 50% of their territory, and dropped to 3rd place because of it.

Will the alliance hold next week, or was it just a flash in the pan? We'll see next week.

In less dramatic news, we also played a game of Carcassone, with the River AND the King and Scout AND the Inns and Cathedrals expansions. Both made a significant difference in the game, although I would say our strategies didn't totally reflect that. In further plays, we would probably try harder to take the new elements into account (for example, even though it was known that whomever had the King at the end of the game received 1 point for each completed city, many 2 tile cities were constructed). The robber changed hands frequently throughout the game, but the King was mine for 99% of it, until LUCH STOLE IT FROM ME ON HIS LAST TURN BY DRAWING A HIGHLY IMPROBABLE TILE. Of course, I can't be too surprised... I was holding the king on a measly 4 tile city I built very early on! Still, the turn of events cost me the game, and landed me in third. Tili got caught up building large cities which couldn't be finished in time (one had a cathedral, giving her no points for her efforts).

All in all, I liked how the expansion affected the game. It's interesting how the rules changes are minimal, but the strategies can become very different. It's also interesting how difficult in can be to complete large cities in a 5 player game (since there are 4 players trying to keep you from finishing anything substantial).
My only complaint would be that it seems a little long... It might make sense to take away a number of random tiles equal to the number added in by the expansions.

Kozure won that one... He stayed ahead by consistently scoring points (although never huge amounts) while still placing enough farmers to not get beat at the endgame (neither Luch's King nor Shemp's Robber were enough to give them the lead, but it seems that these would often otherwise determine the game winner)

I think I might lower my LOTR Risk score somewhat, it's a bit TOO random.

Dominating Carcasses

This week, we (yes, you heard right... WE. I actually made it this time) played a new game called Domaine. This is by the famed designer of Settlers of Catan, Klaus Teuber.
There are similarities: the guy likes random terrain, he likes soldiers which don't really fight (smacks of Canada, you might say), he likes home bases with minimum distances between them and finally, he likes resource hoarding. Still, in practice the similarities are only on the surface, and it all feels fresh and different enough that the game stands on it's own. Everyone tries to fence in little "domaines" and then expand them to include as many resources as possible (forests, towns and castles score points, mines supply money). Since everyone is competing for the same resources, soldiers are deployed to prevent being overrun (it's very simple formula: If you have more soldiers than the other player, you can grow your kingdom into the other's). The winner is the one who can score a set number of points first.
The scoring system is interesting: Your score is the total value of the resources you control, so if another player expands his kingdom and takes over a village you had previously controlled, that player gets the points AND YOU LOSE THEM.
Our first game was funny, because we were all learning and we discovered fairly early on that we all made some really dumb moves, and we were all paying for it. I would say we actually came close to "breaking" the system because we almost couldn't get anything going! In the end, it came down to a couple of really huge territories going to ?????, which won him the game.
Our second game was much better strategically, although I'm sure it will take many plays before we really get it down. In a tight contest, Shemp pulled a win with what would arguably be the oddest shaped territory we will likely ever see in the game.

To finish it off, we played two games of Carcassonne. The last game we played "Speedy Carcassone", giving very little thought to our moves and finishing it off in 15 minutes. The strangest thing: It was a lot of fun that way! I'm sure we'll be doing that again...

Oh yeah, and Shemp is 7h3 5uxx0r

Rating (Domaine):7

Carcasses of Carcassonne

Wednesday night we delved into the mediaeval South of France via the Teutonic game mechanics of Klaus-Jurgen Wrede's classic, Carcassonne.

Shemp hadn't played before, so a quick review of the easy-peasy rules of tile placement and the job opportunities for the ubiquitous "meeples" in this twisting Gallic landscape was called for. We played vanilla Carcassonne first, eschewing all but the most basic rules. It was a relatively close affair at first, but the Unnamed One (currently tagged with the unfortunate moniker of "Hapi") rocketed into first place with a plethora of farmers supplying a bunch of two-tile cities. *cough* Weenie. *cough*

The second game, Shemp had caught on to some degree and was able to ken some of the strategies. Despite my best efforts, Hapi once again was farmer king, edging me out by less than a half-dozen points.

Emboldened by the relative closeness of the second game, we threw in the whole chimichanga and added the river expansion as well as the "Traders and Builders" expansion, thus making this game the most "added-on" version of Carcassonne any of us had played to date. While we don't have the "Inns and Cathedrals" expansion and we had the "King and Scout" expansion but didn't add it in, the change in play feel created by the new add-ons added a new flavour to vanilla Carcassonne - now it tasted of wine mixed with wheat and fabric. Mmmmmm... roughage.

This game was close fought and included two player collusion to prevent farmer-happy Hapi from dominating once again by the use of a strategically placed winding road. In the end, Hapi was left far behind by failing to complete cities or roads, and Shemp and I duelled for first. Shemp, ever the nascent capitalist pig-dog, had also managed to corner the commodities market for wine and wheat, twice sneaking in to complete a city I had all but finished. We tied in fabrics, so those 10 points were a wash. Cagey, that Shemp is. As always, it came down to farmers, but when the dust settled, Shemp's last minute placement of his meeple pig (peegle? piggle? meeg?) earned him the extra points to put him ahead of me by a measly two points. I had lost all three games, but at least in this one, I had the pleasure of almost lapping Hapi twice.

Carcassone: a very well designed and simple game with cute name for pieces.