Falling behind (7 wonders, Robo-rally, I'm the boss!, King of Tokyo, Diamant, El Grande, Cosmic Encounter)

I haven't been updating this regularly, but for the sake of posterity I'm going to record the games played in the last two weeks.

Honestly, it kills me to let the triumphant return of El Grande to the WAGS table pass without more comment, but so it goes. For the record, Shemp and I tied.

(stealth update)
Just wanted to comment on El Grande. If El Grande shows it's age at all, it's in downtime. Between turns, players are not involved in any way and this is something that more recent games have largely eliminated. Still, the gameplay remains extremely engaging for me. There's a simplicity to the process. Many of today's games,as fun as they are, appear to me to be a) variations on "cards with text that breaks rules" or "creatures with powers", or b) "games with so much going on that optimal play is not possible without AP". In the first case, the gameplay itself is usually not particularly interesting... The fun is in finding and creating combos between cards. In b) for many sessions there is no knowing whether the challenge is just doing better than the other guy at understanding the system. You're not necessarily just playing against other players, you are also just struggling to understand the games space. Many games appear interesting, but it's only an illusion because once you become familiar with what is going on and understand the good and bad moves are, you realize the choices are actually pretty obvious and it becomes dull. Anyway, in my mind El Grande is not one of those games. The interface is easy but the choices are always difficult. Great game.

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!

You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought. (Galaxy Trucker, Cosmic Encounter)

I've recently purchased Galaxy Trucker and it's expansion, but I kind of did it despite my better instincts.

I have found two of Vlaada (Vladimír) Chvátil's latest games quite fascinating... Galaxy Trucker and Space Alert. Anyone who reads this blog knows that as much as I enjoy Space Alert, it fell quite flat amongst the rest of the group. Galaxy Trucker has a similar gimmicky vibe to it, and it doesn't have a whole lot of interaction, but I couldn't resist giving it a shot because to me it sounded... fun.

Galaxy Trucker

In Galaxy Trucker, each player must build a space ship out of a common pile of parts (laser cannons, boosters, crew cabins, shields, etc) onto a predetermined ship layout and fly it across the universe in a race to the finish (with extra money to be made if cargo can be delivered at the same time).

The way it works is that there is, literally, a pile of tiles face down on the table. One player yells "Go!" and everyone takes tiles, one at a time, and decides if they want to add it to their ship board. Once a player is happy with their ship, a timer is turned which limits the time left for the other players to finish building. Since everyone is drawing from the same pile, there is incentive to act fast to find the wanted pieces...

Because of the puzzle-like nature of getting all the connections right, and aggravated by the time pressure, the ships that are created are... less than ideal. Connectors stick out, gaps can be found, whole sections of the ship are held by one tiny connecting point. When the ship takes off to fly the dangerous expanse of space, bad things can happen. A deck of event cards is made up for for the trip, and every player must face the challenges one at a time. Space pirates, meteor showers and epidemics on board can have devastating effects on the cobbled together ships. On the bright side, players often have the opportunity to stop and pick up cargo they can sell later on, should they make it to the end.

It's silly, but fun.

In our first flight, my ship was actually fairly well constructed. Shemp made a placement error and had to lose a section of his ship. In the end, it didn't matter much because the flight consisted of open space and cargo pick-ups... I made a fair amount of money and was doing well. In our second flight, I once again had a pretty decent ship. I had a ton of cargo holds, and luckily our flight was again mostly uneventful. I took home a hoard of cash.

By now, Kozure, Luch and Shemp must have been thinking the game was not what I had made it out to be. In in over 20 event cards, we had a single meteor shower. The rest were all beneficial cards.

Ah, but then there was round three. I built out my ship completely, and it had a very good balance of guns, boosters and cargo holds. I was feeling confident that I could turn my lead into a win. Unfortunately, our flight was significantly rougher this time... and I had a lot of sections of my ship dependent on a single connection point. On the first card, I lost 1/4 of my ship to a space pirate attack. The second card was a meteor shower that took out another quarter. Then my shield went. Then everything went. About half way through, I retired from the race with my decimated ship left without a human crew to fly it.

Shemp made it nearly to the end, but ultimately blew up as well. Luch and Kozure made it to the end, and Luch was loaded with goods. When the score was counted, it he had 20x the score of last place Shemp (60+ to 3)!!!

Despite a number of surfae similarities (designer, art, gimmicky design, etc) Galaxy Trucker turned out to be well received by the group. We laughed a lot, and it proved entertaining and challenging. Even the event card phase, where up 16 cards need to be resolved in turn, occurs quickly enough AND has *just* enough decision making to keep things engaging. I'm very happy this experiment was a success.

Cosmic Encounter

This was our second evening playing Cosmic Encounter, though it was the first game for Luch. I was the Vaccuum, Shemp was the Pacifist, Kozure was the (I can't remember the name, but they retrieve used artifacts) and Luch was the Clone.

We played to 5 colonies this time, and the game played exactly in an hour, which was perfect.

There was a couple of memorable moments, such as the negotiations between Luch and Shemp that would have ended the game in a shared victory that were cancelled through Kozure's emotion control (which was, itself, sapped and counter-zapped). A second fun moment occured when I switched Luch and Shemp's races permanently.

The Vaccuum's power of sucking a number of other player's ships into the warp every time I lost some of mine proved to be quite powerful. The sucking noises I made everytime I exercised this power on other players proved to be quite satisfying.

I spent the last few rounds of the game trying to land a shared victory with ANYONE because my hand sucked so bad I knew I couldn't win otherwise. It almost worked with Kozure, but it came down to a tie that went to the defender, Shemp. Kozure spent much of the later rounds with only one ship on each of his colonies, which seems to be a situation that is hard to get out of.

In the end, Shemp managed to claw his way back from a 3 point deficit and get the win!

Again, I had a lot of fun. I like the feel of the game. Negotiation, backstabbing, chaos and fun. Not to be taken too seriously, but there is still lots of room to manipulate the outcome.

Backstabstract (So Long, Sucker! x2, Cosmic Encounter x2)

It was Shemp's pick, and it was positively Luchian: He did a search on BGG for the word "Backstabby" and then selected 5 games from the list it returned. In the end it didn't matter, we played two sessions of two of the games instead.

So Long, Sucker!

This is an abstract backstabby game (or "Backstabstract", if you will) which was co-designed by John Nash, the mathematician featured in "A Beautiful Mind".

It's simple on the surface, as abstracts often are. It's a chip placement game, but with a heavy emphasis on cutting deals a la Intrigue.

We played two games, and lots of deals were made. Moves can be planned several turns in advance, and frequently a whole sequence of turns would be proposed between two players to achieve a certain nefarious goal. Our group showed a particular knack for living up to the letter of the agreements, but not the spirit: loopholes in agreements where gleefully exploited (not that the game forces players to live up to agreements, but it's more fun to do it this way). Kozure masterminded his way to the top in game 1, and Shemp edged me out in game 2.

Cosmic Encounter

I have the new Fantasy Flight version of this game from the late 70s/ early 80s. I had high hopes for it as a light, fun game with lots of negotiation, backstabbery and variety.

The goal in cosmic Encounter is to get your ships on 5 of the other player's planets first. The basic structure of the game is that on your turn you draw a card which instructs you regarding which player to attack. Then, alliances are made on the offensive and defensive side, each main player chooses a card from their hand and the highest total (number on card + number of ships) wins. If you win as the attacker, you and your allies get to set up a colony on that player's planet. If you win as the defender, your planet is safe and your allies get to draw cards or recuperate destroyed ships as compensation.

This basic structure is livened up by the fact that each player represents a race which has a unique, game changing power. Also, the attack deck is peppered with "flares" which are limited versions of all the race powers in play (which become "super flares" in the hands of the correct race). Finally, in addition to the attack and flare cards, there are "negotiate" cards which allow... negotation.

In our first game, I was the "observer" race. My power was that my allies don't die in battle. I thought it sounded intriguing, and on the very first turn I asked Shemp to help me in a battle under the pretense that "he had nothing to lose". Beleiving this to be true, he committed a large part of his army of flying saucers to my cause. Little did either of us know, but there are cards in the attack deck which cancel the use of a race power. Kozure, playing the "Zombie" race, prevented me from saving Shemp's ships when I lost. Shemp never recovered. Although Kozure was easily dominating the game, Bharmer spied an opportunity to sneak his way to 4 colonies on his turn, giving him the win.

I think we all had a good time, and it was short enough to try again so we did.

In our second game, I player "The Loser". This race has the ability to reverse the winning conditions in a battle (i.e. a win result means "lose", a lose result means "win". Kozure was "The Oracle" which forces battling opponents to reveal their card before the Oracle reveals hers. Shemp was a race that grew in strength when it won a battle, and grew even more when it lost. Bharmer had a power which allowed him to keep a full hand at all times.

For whatever reason, we struggled on a couple occasions to figure out how certain powers interact. There was a situation where I, as the Loser, reversed the win conditions to a battle with Kozure, the Oracle. I reversed the win conditions but he only had a negotiate, so what happens then? We ruled that the negotiate card would normally lose and collect retribution, so if reversed he should win and collect retribution. Another example: If the Oracle has her super flare, which allows her to stop a combat and send the attacking aliens home, but when attacked she has no encounter cards left and should therefore draw a new hand. When I looked at the timing listed on the cards afterwatrds, it was clear that the hand needed to be discarded and re-shuffled (the artifact can only be played in the "resolution phase", which occurs after both players have chosen their cards).

The struggle to interpret cards led to more downtime for the other players. Also, we seemed to get more greedy because players were refusing any allies during most of the combats. As a result, it was substantially less fun than the first session.
I won by converting a combat in to negotiations and proposing a simple exchange of colonies with Kozure, who didn't notice it would win me the game (it was late and everyone needed to leave, so it was okay, right?).

If we can keep the game length down, get comfortable enough with the rules and interactions that sessions don't devolve into interpretation parties and ratchet up the negotiations and backstabbing, I think this could be a great game (that is a lot of "ifs", however). The powers really do have a major impact on the feel of the game, and negotiations are similarly affected. There isn't a large number of items to negotiate for other than allowing bases on planets, which is a touch disappointing. However, the impact and interaction of the race powers means that while in each individual game there may not be a lot of depth in deal making, the kinds of interaction, negotiation and backstabbing that are likely to take place are going to be fairly different from game to game. That's a good thing in my book.

It was fun. Looking forward to trying it again.