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.
Showing posts with label Diamant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Diamant. Show all posts
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Friday, November 07, 2008
I.H.T.C.I.M.T. (Diamant x2, TransEuropa x2, Power Grid, TransAmerica)
This week's post will be short:
Games were played in an environment of giddiness that was extreme even by our measure. I.H.T.C.I.M.T. will live on forever.
We played 2 games of Diamant. Those were surely the deadliest caves in Diamant history! 4-5 disasters in a row happened more often than you'd think...
Then, we played TransEuropa twice. Can anything really be said of TransEuropa? Not really, except that Bharmer appears to be pretty good at it.
We then played a ridiculously fast 6 player game of Power Grid. We weren't trying to speed play or anything, but it still clocked in a well under 2 hours... maybe even 1.5 hours. We played on the U.S.A. map (in honour of the recent elections, I suppose). I started in the hideously expensive south west, and pretty much lost when I made that decision. No one else started there, but Luch and Shemp came knocking soon enough. That meant that the few possibilities I had to expand beyond the LA area were eaten up before I could get to them.
Kozure zoomed ahead in the networked city count, and somehow avoided the downsides. He won the game with only JayWowzer as a possible threat to his win.
Speaking of JayWowzer, it's possible this was his last hurrah with us (his project in Canada is nearly complete). If we don't cross paths again, it was a pleasure gaming with you!
(we finished off with a game of TransAmerica. As usual I did very badly. Bharmer didn't win this one, but he was awfully close)
Games were played in an environment of giddiness that was extreme even by our measure. I.H.T.C.I.M.T. will live on forever.
We played 2 games of Diamant. Those were surely the deadliest caves in Diamant history! 4-5 disasters in a row happened more often than you'd think...
Then, we played TransEuropa twice. Can anything really be said of TransEuropa? Not really, except that Bharmer appears to be pretty good at it.
We then played a ridiculously fast 6 player game of Power Grid. We weren't trying to speed play or anything, but it still clocked in a well under 2 hours... maybe even 1.5 hours. We played on the U.S.A. map (in honour of the recent elections, I suppose). I started in the hideously expensive south west, and pretty much lost when I made that decision. No one else started there, but Luch and Shemp came knocking soon enough. That meant that the few possibilities I had to expand beyond the LA area were eaten up before I could get to them.
Kozure zoomed ahead in the networked city count, and somehow avoided the downsides. He won the game with only JayWowzer as a possible threat to his win.
Speaking of JayWowzer, it's possible this was his last hurrah with us (his project in Canada is nearly complete). If we don't cross paths again, it was a pleasure gaming with you!
(we finished off with a game of TransAmerica. As usual I did very badly. Bharmer didn't win this one, but he was awfully close)
Monday, November 20, 2006
An evening of Deviance (Diamant, Zombies 4, El Grande, Quo Vadis?)
I thought it would be fun to play a number of games we've played many times before, but with house rules or official variants.
First up was Diamant. We played with a variant I found on BGG which suggested that caves with only 1 ruby in it be replaced with an idol worth 10. This turned out to be a great alternative to the base rules! The idol can't be split, so the only way to pick it up is to be the only one in the cave, or the only one leaving them. When one of these turns up, the tension regarding the otherwise simple stay or go mechanic is brought up a notch. I won the game by being lucky and picking up a couple of idols and lots of diamonds. Very enjoyable... I might never play with the base rules again.
Next was Zombies 4: the end. I didn't actually mean to play this with a variant, I just wanted to give it a spin since it didn't get to play it on Halloween. This is a very silly game which involves searching a forest which grows as the game goes on in search of an old cabin. Zombie dogs are everywhere and the idea is to cast a spell in the old cabin once it is found, in order to dispel the evil. I enjoyed the original Zombies as a funny, silly dicefest. i thought it was worth getting a copy when Kozure decided to sell his... though for variety I tried this standalone expansion set instead since it got good reviews. Sadly, we unwittingly introduced a variant I will term "The boring version of an already questionable game". In the standard rules, when a blank forest tile is brought up, up to 6 zombie dogs are meant to be placed on it. We didn't. Therefore, the only dogs on the board were those specifically called for on the "named" tiles... leaving a rather empty and boring forest for us to explore. Oh well, Luch eventually cast the spell in the old cabin and ended the curse. Good for him (and for us since it finally ended the game). i really didn't enjoy the session much. I think this is partly due to the incorrectly played rules, but I suspect that this is inferior to the original set (the cards didn't seem conducive to a fun game, anyway).
Next was El Grande. In an effort to try to reduce the amount of time between turns, I thought it would be interesting to split the player's actions into two phases. In other words, where a player normally takes an action card and then activates the card's power and/or places caballeros from the court to the board, in this vairant the player chooses one of these two things and then waits for it to come around again before executing his/her second action. The verdict? Suffice it to say that we played the last third of the game using the classic rules. Things didn't seem faster at all! It's quite possible that the major contributor to downtime int his game is analysis, so having two mini-turns simply introduced another round of "thinking". Also, splitting the two phases had the unfortunate effect of broadcasting your intentions to the other plays (the King, in particular, becomes much less usefull).
Last,but not least, was Quo Vadis?. I thought it would be interesting to introduce a set collecting element, so I took out all the chips valued above two and added the lillypads from Knizia'a children game "Leapin' Lilly Pads". We decided to score each lillypad as 1 point, each pair as 3 and each triple as 5. Though it seemed to add a certain amount of analysis paralysis to the game, it was pretty cool to see the tiles turn up and be worth different amounts to different people. This led to some creative deal-making, exactly as I had hoped! Sadly, the one aspect missing is variable income. Picking up a 3 is worth 3. Unlike in, say, Monopoly, the value of a token is pretty easy to measure (in monopoly, the present value must be considered against future potential income). Still, I'd say it was an improvement.
First up was Diamant. We played with a variant I found on BGG which suggested that caves with only 1 ruby in it be replaced with an idol worth 10. This turned out to be a great alternative to the base rules! The idol can't be split, so the only way to pick it up is to be the only one in the cave, or the only one leaving them. When one of these turns up, the tension regarding the otherwise simple stay or go mechanic is brought up a notch. I won the game by being lucky and picking up a couple of idols and lots of diamonds. Very enjoyable... I might never play with the base rules again.
Next was Zombies 4: the end. I didn't actually mean to play this with a variant, I just wanted to give it a spin since it didn't get to play it on Halloween. This is a very silly game which involves searching a forest which grows as the game goes on in search of an old cabin. Zombie dogs are everywhere and the idea is to cast a spell in the old cabin once it is found, in order to dispel the evil. I enjoyed the original Zombies as a funny, silly dicefest. i thought it was worth getting a copy when Kozure decided to sell his... though for variety I tried this standalone expansion set instead since it got good reviews. Sadly, we unwittingly introduced a variant I will term "The boring version of an already questionable game". In the standard rules, when a blank forest tile is brought up, up to 6 zombie dogs are meant to be placed on it. We didn't. Therefore, the only dogs on the board were those specifically called for on the "named" tiles... leaving a rather empty and boring forest for us to explore. Oh well, Luch eventually cast the spell in the old cabin and ended the curse. Good for him (and for us since it finally ended the game). i really didn't enjoy the session much. I think this is partly due to the incorrectly played rules, but I suspect that this is inferior to the original set (the cards didn't seem conducive to a fun game, anyway).
Next was El Grande. In an effort to try to reduce the amount of time between turns, I thought it would be interesting to split the player's actions into two phases. In other words, where a player normally takes an action card and then activates the card's power and/or places caballeros from the court to the board, in this vairant the player chooses one of these two things and then waits for it to come around again before executing his/her second action. The verdict? Suffice it to say that we played the last third of the game using the classic rules. Things didn't seem faster at all! It's quite possible that the major contributor to downtime int his game is analysis, so having two mini-turns simply introduced another round of "thinking". Also, splitting the two phases had the unfortunate effect of broadcasting your intentions to the other plays (the King, in particular, becomes much less usefull).
Last,but not least, was Quo Vadis?. I thought it would be interesting to introduce a set collecting element, so I took out all the chips valued above two and added the lillypads from Knizia'a children game "Leapin' Lilly Pads". We decided to score each lillypad as 1 point, each pair as 3 and each triple as 5. Though it seemed to add a certain amount of analysis paralysis to the game, it was pretty cool to see the tiles turn up and be worth different amounts to different people. This led to some creative deal-making, exactly as I had hoped! Sadly, the one aspect missing is variable income. Picking up a 3 is worth 3. Unlike in, say, Monopoly, the value of a token is pretty easy to measure (in monopoly, the present value must be considered against future potential income). Still, I'd say it was an improvement.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
It takes a village... (Diamant, Tikal x2, Antike, Saboteur)
Quite a crowd at "Chez Kozure" this week.
JayWowzer just couldn't bear the California heat so a mere two weeks after his last visit, we had him in our midst once again. Shamus, having recently humbled us in his first ever evening of german games, thought enough of them to come back... and this time with his girlfriend, Robin!
So, with Shemp out house hunting we had 7 people together. What to play?
We started out with Diamant. Nice, easy fun and fast. In the 3rd cave, Robin found herself all alone and still feeling brave enough to keep going deeper. It paid off in a big way and she left us in the dust (somewhere between 20-30 gems collected in that cave alone). Didn't help that the next two caves were over before they started...
Next Luch requested we play Tikal. We had two copies, so after the explanations we split off and got started. I played with JayWowzer and Luch. It was a great game... competition was tight throughout. I was obscenely lucky and made a triple out of the first 3 treasures I drew. Assuming it would be all downhill from there, I opted to stay out from treasure collecting for the rest of the game (hoping to gain an advantage by not using up valuable action points taking/ trading treasures later on). I made 2 surprise "swoops", taking ownership of high value temples (a 7 and a 10) out from under the other player's noses, but it was too early... I lost a lot of workers in the process and I would need them later on. In the end, I couldn't keep control of enough other temples and JayWowzer's superior mobility and accumulated treasure beat us out in the last few rounds.
The others were still going strong (it was a learning game, after all). Kozure joined us and we moved on to Antike. JayWowzer was kind enough to bring it along so we could give it a spin. I'm sure glad he did! I like the idea of civilization type games, but they are really hard to pull off... Too long, not balanced, fiddly, etc. A truly brilliant civ. game would incorporate war, politics, religion, technological advancements and negotiations in a game which lasted less than 4 hours. Antike is NOT that game, but it IS lots of fun.
Antike is a game set in the ancient mediteranean. Each player starts with a set of three regions, each of which produces a different good (marble, Iron, Gold). Over the course of the game, players race to accumulate a set number of victory points.
The path to that goal is surprisingly clean and simple...
1) Expanding your empire increases your production. Every 5th region under a player's control is worth a VP.
2) GOLD can be accumulated and spent on technological advancements (the wheel, currency, etc). Any player who purchases an advancement gets it's benefit, but the FIRST player to purchase each advancement gets a VP.
3) MARBLE can be spent on building temples. Temples have the direct effect of increasing production and defenses in a region. Every THIRD temple nets a VP.
4) IRON can be spent on building armies (boats or land armies). Occupying 7 ocean hexes nets a VP. Destroying a temple nets a VP.
Actions are selected in a somewhat novel way: The top right corner of the board shows a wheel with each possible action on it (generate marble, build a temple, etc). On a turn, a player can move their marker around the wheel up to 3 spaces and carries out that action (moves beyond 3 spaces are possible at a cost). The wheel is set up in such a way that producing a given resource always leaves a player 1 step too far from the action where it would be spent. It works well and it results in a game which moves remarkably quickly. How many civilization themed games can claim that 4 players take their turns in 2-3 minutes TOTAL?
I started out as Greece. I had a fair number of gold producing regions nearby, so I decided to skip the empire building race and focus on purchasing technological advancements. I took over 4 of those gold regions and built 3 temples on them. I maxed out all the advancements (being the first to buy 5 of the 8). By the end of the game, I was producing 13 gold! Kozure, Luch and JayWowzer had accumulated quite the large empires, armed with a number of armies and fleets. I was VERY nervous that Kozure was going to attack my rather small and fragile territory. One more turn and I think the tide would have turned... As it was I finished the game by expanding to my 10th territory and purchasing 3 temples in quick succession. It was an entirely bloodless game!
In future sessions, I'd never get away with it.
Anyway, Antike manages to incorporate empire building, war and technological advancement in a very elegant and streamlined package which features virtually zero downtime and a very rapid 1.5 hour playtime. If I could find it locally, I'd surely buy it. Chris Farrell has criticized this game on his blog. I can't say I agree with him here. I quite like it.
We finished up with Saboteur. I bought this game, along with Diamant, specifically for our New Year's Eve party... thinking that a nice light game which could accomodate a large group would be a hit (and wanting an alternative to party games, though we would ultimately play those as well). It didn't go over too well.
In Saboteur, players assume the roles of dwarves digging mining tunnels trying to get to 3 different spots which MIGHT contain treasure. The twist is that one or more players MIGHT be traitors! They win if the dwarves finish the game without finding the treasure. It's a card game, and on a turn a player simply plays a card and then draws to replace. The card might be a section of tunnel or a "hazard" card which prevents another player from functioning until they play the appropriate "fix" card (this works exactly like the "hazard/ safety" mechanic from Mille Bornes). Obviously, the traitors try to inconspicuously lead the tunnel in the wrong direction, etc, because the moment they are discovered the hazards start to pile up quick.
The problem on New Year's Eve was that it was simply impossible for the good dwarves to win! The deck routinely ran out before the they could get close to any of the possible destinations. A quick visit to BGG proved to be very confusing... opinions there seemed to be that there was no way for the TRAITORS to win.
How is that possible?
Well, after playing last night I can concur that with 4 players the good dwarves have it pretty easy. The only hand where the traitor came close to stopping the others was caused by me and JayWowzer being completely convinced Luch was the traitor, burying him under a constant barrage of hazards. At the last minute, it became clear we were dead wrong and Kozure was actually the traitor. We recovered and found the gold, but it was pretty lucky (and I have to commend Luch for taking the punishment without letting on we were mistaken... the game lives and dies on players being able to keep their secrets)
Bottom line: Played as-is, the number of players seems to frequently predetermine which side will win. In a 4 player game, a maximum of 1 out of 4 players will be a traitor. In a 7 player game, 3 out of 7 could be traitors. Percentage wise, that's a big difference. Perhaps adding a potential 2nd traitor to the mix in the 4 player game might allow a less predictable shift of power. We'll see. There are probably "ideal" numbers of players where the ratio of traitors and good dwarves is balanced (I'd guess 6 and 9). The good news is that I enjoyed the game much more than I did the first time. It's nothing special, but there aren't a huge number of decent 10 player games, so it will find it's place (and it's certainly fun enough for the occasional play with fewer people).
Oh, and at the next table Robin proved once again that the newcomer should never be underestimated. She won. They are a crafty couple, it seems.
Antike: 9
Saboteur: 6
JayWowzer just couldn't bear the California heat so a mere two weeks after his last visit, we had him in our midst once again. Shamus, having recently humbled us in his first ever evening of german games, thought enough of them to come back... and this time with his girlfriend, Robin!
So, with Shemp out house hunting we had 7 people together. What to play?
We started out with Diamant. Nice, easy fun and fast. In the 3rd cave, Robin found herself all alone and still feeling brave enough to keep going deeper. It paid off in a big way and she left us in the dust (somewhere between 20-30 gems collected in that cave alone). Didn't help that the next two caves were over before they started...
Next Luch requested we play Tikal. We had two copies, so after the explanations we split off and got started. I played with JayWowzer and Luch. It was a great game... competition was tight throughout. I was obscenely lucky and made a triple out of the first 3 treasures I drew. Assuming it would be all downhill from there, I opted to stay out from treasure collecting for the rest of the game (hoping to gain an advantage by not using up valuable action points taking/ trading treasures later on). I made 2 surprise "swoops", taking ownership of high value temples (a 7 and a 10) out from under the other player's noses, but it was too early... I lost a lot of workers in the process and I would need them later on. In the end, I couldn't keep control of enough other temples and JayWowzer's superior mobility and accumulated treasure beat us out in the last few rounds.
The others were still going strong (it was a learning game, after all). Kozure joined us and we moved on to Antike. JayWowzer was kind enough to bring it along so we could give it a spin. I'm sure glad he did! I like the idea of civilization type games, but they are really hard to pull off... Too long, not balanced, fiddly, etc. A truly brilliant civ. game would incorporate war, politics, religion, technological advancements and negotiations in a game which lasted less than 4 hours. Antike is NOT that game, but it IS lots of fun.
Antike is a game set in the ancient mediteranean. Each player starts with a set of three regions, each of which produces a different good (marble, Iron, Gold). Over the course of the game, players race to accumulate a set number of victory points.
The path to that goal is surprisingly clean and simple...
1) Expanding your empire increases your production. Every 5th region under a player's control is worth a VP.
2) GOLD can be accumulated and spent on technological advancements (the wheel, currency, etc). Any player who purchases an advancement gets it's benefit, but the FIRST player to purchase each advancement gets a VP.
3) MARBLE can be spent on building temples. Temples have the direct effect of increasing production and defenses in a region. Every THIRD temple nets a VP.
4) IRON can be spent on building armies (boats or land armies). Occupying 7 ocean hexes nets a VP. Destroying a temple nets a VP.
Actions are selected in a somewhat novel way: The top right corner of the board shows a wheel with each possible action on it (generate marble, build a temple, etc). On a turn, a player can move their marker around the wheel up to 3 spaces and carries out that action (moves beyond 3 spaces are possible at a cost). The wheel is set up in such a way that producing a given resource always leaves a player 1 step too far from the action where it would be spent. It works well and it results in a game which moves remarkably quickly. How many civilization themed games can claim that 4 players take their turns in 2-3 minutes TOTAL?
I started out as Greece. I had a fair number of gold producing regions nearby, so I decided to skip the empire building race and focus on purchasing technological advancements. I took over 4 of those gold regions and built 3 temples on them. I maxed out all the advancements (being the first to buy 5 of the 8). By the end of the game, I was producing 13 gold! Kozure, Luch and JayWowzer had accumulated quite the large empires, armed with a number of armies and fleets. I was VERY nervous that Kozure was going to attack my rather small and fragile territory. One more turn and I think the tide would have turned... As it was I finished the game by expanding to my 10th territory and purchasing 3 temples in quick succession. It was an entirely bloodless game!
In future sessions, I'd never get away with it.
Anyway, Antike manages to incorporate empire building, war and technological advancement in a very elegant and streamlined package which features virtually zero downtime and a very rapid 1.5 hour playtime. If I could find it locally, I'd surely buy it. Chris Farrell has criticized this game on his blog. I can't say I agree with him here. I quite like it.
We finished up with Saboteur. I bought this game, along with Diamant, specifically for our New Year's Eve party... thinking that a nice light game which could accomodate a large group would be a hit (and wanting an alternative to party games, though we would ultimately play those as well). It didn't go over too well.
In Saboteur, players assume the roles of dwarves digging mining tunnels trying to get to 3 different spots which MIGHT contain treasure. The twist is that one or more players MIGHT be traitors! They win if the dwarves finish the game without finding the treasure. It's a card game, and on a turn a player simply plays a card and then draws to replace. The card might be a section of tunnel or a "hazard" card which prevents another player from functioning until they play the appropriate "fix" card (this works exactly like the "hazard/ safety" mechanic from Mille Bornes). Obviously, the traitors try to inconspicuously lead the tunnel in the wrong direction, etc, because the moment they are discovered the hazards start to pile up quick.
The problem on New Year's Eve was that it was simply impossible for the good dwarves to win! The deck routinely ran out before the they could get close to any of the possible destinations. A quick visit to BGG proved to be very confusing... opinions there seemed to be that there was no way for the TRAITORS to win.
How is that possible?
Well, after playing last night I can concur that with 4 players the good dwarves have it pretty easy. The only hand where the traitor came close to stopping the others was caused by me and JayWowzer being completely convinced Luch was the traitor, burying him under a constant barrage of hazards. At the last minute, it became clear we were dead wrong and Kozure was actually the traitor. We recovered and found the gold, but it was pretty lucky (and I have to commend Luch for taking the punishment without letting on we were mistaken... the game lives and dies on players being able to keep their secrets)
Bottom line: Played as-is, the number of players seems to frequently predetermine which side will win. In a 4 player game, a maximum of 1 out of 4 players will be a traitor. In a 7 player game, 3 out of 7 could be traitors. Percentage wise, that's a big difference. Perhaps adding a potential 2nd traitor to the mix in the 4 player game might allow a less predictable shift of power. We'll see. There are probably "ideal" numbers of players where the ratio of traitors and good dwarves is balanced (I'd guess 6 and 9). The good news is that I enjoyed the game much more than I did the first time. It's nothing special, but there aren't a huge number of decent 10 player games, so it will find it's place (and it's certainly fun enough for the occasional play with fewer people).
Oh, and at the next table Robin proved once again that the newcomer should never be underestimated. She won. They are a crafty couple, it seems.
Antike: 9
Saboteur: 6
Saturday, January 07, 2006
I'm gonna build my track annoying! (Railroad Tycoon, Diamant)
Happy New Years!
Not surprisingly, our first WAGS session of the year saw new games received and/ or purchased for the holidays. Railroad Tycoon was a present I received from my wife, and I was REALLY looking forward to trying it out. It was Shemp's pick, and he had envisioned a train themed evening including RT and Ticket to Ride (with a call for snacks that were "easy to transport, like trail mix").
We layed the whole thing out. I had been told that the board was big, but Kozure's table isn't exactly small... Unfortunately, it still didn't fit! The width of the board hung over by about 2 inches. I had also heard about the difficulty in distinguishing blue and purple cities. Oddly, we didn't have too much trouble, the problem seemed to be that Eagle used a dark purple for blue and a magenta for purple. What confused us was that the purple cubes were virtually identical in colour to the blue cities! I don't think it really led to any errors, but we were certainly checking things twice as we played.
No matter, the game was FUN. The theme of railroad empire building is very succesfully realized in the game... Decisions regarding where to lay track, how to assess the state of supply and demand on the board, when to upgrade engines, whether to issue shares or wait, etc results in a very engaging game. The cards and "tycoon" roles seem to successfully create variety and tension in the game. All this, and the result is still extremely approachable. I think Kozure summed it up best: The game is simple without being simplistic.
As the rules warned us not to let the North East be controlled by a single player, all of us but Luch jumped to that corner to start. I snagged a New York - Albany - Boston - New Haven route early on (with the Boston Hotel), and felt very comfortable in my position. However, Kozure made very shrewd bids and kept stealing bonus cards from under my nose, giving him an early and comfortable lead. Meanwhile, Shemp picked up the New York hotel (dramatically impacting my prospects for deliveries in that corner) and built a terribly expensive link across the mountains towards Toronto. Luch set up in the South-East and expanded without much opposition, picking up a good number of bonus cards very cheaply because of it. Before long, I was last and so I tried to make up for it by trying out the "Western Link" feature (encouraged by the fact that my "tycoon" card required one for bonus points). I didn't plan ahead very well, however, and built a rather direct 2 link path from Chicago to Desmoines. I therefore only had a steady stream of 2 point deliveries to show for my $30 000... not enough to catch up (and made worse by the fact that Shemp had crossed over to Chicago as well, and was benefitting far more from the generated Western Link cubes than I was). Shemp aslo managed to accomplish the long route from New York to Kansas City, giving him 20 points! Luch continued his domination of the south, grabbing many points along the way. Ultimately, though, Kozure had the biggest trains and the longest routes. He pulled in a lot of points on very few shares.
He won by quite a margin.
It was a great game, and I'm definitely looking forward to a rematch! (fun fact: Kozure had only 3 shares at the end of the game, Luch had 4, I had 5, and Shemp had 16!!!! Still, he did something right because he came in 2nd...)
The game didn't take too long considering it was our first (a little over 2 hours), but between our late start and eating it was already 10:15pm. We didn't have time for Ticket to Ride, so I pulled out Diamant. I had purchased this in anticipation of our New Year's Eve party, where lighter games for large groups would be very useful. It turned out to be a hit, and the short playing time makes it easy to slip in when it's getting late.
Diamant is a "push your luck" type game where players take on the role of intrepid miners on the search for gems in a dangerous set of 5 caves. The trick of the game is that for every card which is turned up, all players must secretely and individually decide if they will get out or keep going. Getting out means that all gems aquired are permanently kept, but staying in means potentially getting quite a bit more. If the same disaster card turns up twice, any players still in the cave lose everything they've accumulated so far!
I quite like this game. It does what it sets out to do perfectly... Be fun and fast. It's all about managing luck, and outguessing your opponents. There are a couple of mechanics which come toghether to make this really work:
1) The simultaneous "in" or "out" decision keeps the game fast even with 8 players.
2) The gems left behind acts as incentive for people to go back, adding another level of things to think about when deciding whether to leave or push on.
3) The fact that gems are shared equally means that there is the real potential for a huge score if everyone pulls out but 1 and a large gem tile is pulled up. This "carrot" led many unfortunate adventurers to their doom.
It all add up to a simple, chaotic 15 minute game which feels a little like gambling, where reading the intentions of your opponents and pushing your luck can make you win big or totally blow it. Highly enjoyable for what it is... We played 4 times!
Railroad Tycoon: 9
Diamant: 8
Not surprisingly, our first WAGS session of the year saw new games received and/ or purchased for the holidays. Railroad Tycoon was a present I received from my wife, and I was REALLY looking forward to trying it out. It was Shemp's pick, and he had envisioned a train themed evening including RT and Ticket to Ride (with a call for snacks that were "easy to transport, like trail mix").
We layed the whole thing out. I had been told that the board was big, but Kozure's table isn't exactly small... Unfortunately, it still didn't fit! The width of the board hung over by about 2 inches. I had also heard about the difficulty in distinguishing blue and purple cities. Oddly, we didn't have too much trouble, the problem seemed to be that Eagle used a dark purple for blue and a magenta for purple. What confused us was that the purple cubes were virtually identical in colour to the blue cities! I don't think it really led to any errors, but we were certainly checking things twice as we played.
No matter, the game was FUN. The theme of railroad empire building is very succesfully realized in the game... Decisions regarding where to lay track, how to assess the state of supply and demand on the board, when to upgrade engines, whether to issue shares or wait, etc results in a very engaging game. The cards and "tycoon" roles seem to successfully create variety and tension in the game. All this, and the result is still extremely approachable. I think Kozure summed it up best: The game is simple without being simplistic.
As the rules warned us not to let the North East be controlled by a single player, all of us but Luch jumped to that corner to start. I snagged a New York - Albany - Boston - New Haven route early on (with the Boston Hotel), and felt very comfortable in my position. However, Kozure made very shrewd bids and kept stealing bonus cards from under my nose, giving him an early and comfortable lead. Meanwhile, Shemp picked up the New York hotel (dramatically impacting my prospects for deliveries in that corner) and built a terribly expensive link across the mountains towards Toronto. Luch set up in the South-East and expanded without much opposition, picking up a good number of bonus cards very cheaply because of it. Before long, I was last and so I tried to make up for it by trying out the "Western Link" feature (encouraged by the fact that my "tycoon" card required one for bonus points). I didn't plan ahead very well, however, and built a rather direct 2 link path from Chicago to Desmoines. I therefore only had a steady stream of 2 point deliveries to show for my $30 000... not enough to catch up (and made worse by the fact that Shemp had crossed over to Chicago as well, and was benefitting far more from the generated Western Link cubes than I was). Shemp aslo managed to accomplish the long route from New York to Kansas City, giving him 20 points! Luch continued his domination of the south, grabbing many points along the way. Ultimately, though, Kozure had the biggest trains and the longest routes. He pulled in a lot of points on very few shares.
He won by quite a margin.
It was a great game, and I'm definitely looking forward to a rematch! (fun fact: Kozure had only 3 shares at the end of the game, Luch had 4, I had 5, and Shemp had 16!!!! Still, he did something right because he came in 2nd...)
The game didn't take too long considering it was our first (a little over 2 hours), but between our late start and eating it was already 10:15pm. We didn't have time for Ticket to Ride, so I pulled out Diamant. I had purchased this in anticipation of our New Year's Eve party, where lighter games for large groups would be very useful. It turned out to be a hit, and the short playing time makes it easy to slip in when it's getting late.
Diamant is a "push your luck" type game where players take on the role of intrepid miners on the search for gems in a dangerous set of 5 caves. The trick of the game is that for every card which is turned up, all players must secretely and individually decide if they will get out or keep going. Getting out means that all gems aquired are permanently kept, but staying in means potentially getting quite a bit more. If the same disaster card turns up twice, any players still in the cave lose everything they've accumulated so far!
I quite like this game. It does what it sets out to do perfectly... Be fun and fast. It's all about managing luck, and outguessing your opponents. There are a couple of mechanics which come toghether to make this really work:
1) The simultaneous "in" or "out" decision keeps the game fast even with 8 players.
2) The gems left behind acts as incentive for people to go back, adding another level of things to think about when deciding whether to leave or push on.
3) The fact that gems are shared equally means that there is the real potential for a huge score if everyone pulls out but 1 and a large gem tile is pulled up. This "carrot" led many unfortunate adventurers to their doom.
It all add up to a simple, chaotic 15 minute game which feels a little like gambling, where reading the intentions of your opponents and pushing your luck can make you win big or totally blow it. Highly enjoyable for what it is... We played 4 times!
Railroad Tycoon: 9
Diamant: 8
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