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 El Grande. Show all posts
Showing posts with label El Grande. Show all posts
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Monday, July 13, 2009
Kill the Leader (El Grande, Beowulf)
It was Shemp's pick, but he couldn't decide what to choose so I brought along a big bag of games. His choices were El Grande and Beowulf, despite his earlier assertion that "kill the leader" would be the theme for the evening (El Grande works, but Beowulf does not).
El Grande
El Grande was up first. Our last play was november of last year, and I found myself unsure of some of the setup despite this being just about my favorite game. I was dealt Old Castille, Kozure was Valencia, Luch was New Castille and Shemp was Basque.
Our group typically doesn't go out of it's way to practice "Kill the Leader" tactics. This time, we repeated the mantra frequently in order to keep the objective clear. Unsurprisingly, it worked... Whoever pulled out to a lead was quickly pulled back. For example, I was starting to break away when my Grande's province was neutralized by a mobile score board and an influx of other player's cubes. It was never clear who was going to win, and everyone was a contender at one point or another. In the end, Shemp (who struggled in the first three rounds with very few points) managed to win by +/-5 points in a VERY close game for all involved. Maybe 10 points separated us all. I've always loved this game, but this one was particularly excellent and I hope we'll carry forward the aggressive play in future sessions. Kozure mentioned again that this isn't a game he favors, but in my opinion there isn't a game out there that can touch it when 4-5 players want to match wits in a meaty game that offers tough choices and opportunities for clever play in an hour and a half.
As an aside, I used to frequently glide into the last turn as the starting player with my 13 power card, move the king to my advantage and score huge points. Over the years, others have been trying to do the same, so we keep having to start earlier and earlier with the low power cards in order to control the bidding. This week, I managed to pull it off after several games where I failed (Shemp is usually the one who steals it from me), but I had to start in round 5 for it to work. Pretty soon, we'll start off the game with our power cards all planned out for the final round!
Beowulf
Beowulf has been a game that has sat on my trade pile for quite some time, despite the fact that I like it. I didn't think the group liked it much, and the odd pairing of theme and mechanics prevented me from introducing it to others. Turns out that many in the group did like it, but thought I had traded it away long ago so they never requested it. Since I had it in the bag of games, Shemp thought it was time to try it out again (the last time was January 2008).
It's hard to pinpoint exactly why, but I particularly enjoyed this session. The risking felt right, in the sense that it worked often but people who risked too often did get bit on occasion. The was an epic battle at the end at the dragon, which saw many players pull out all the stops and some engage in high stakes risking. Shemp and I where both in a tight spot because we both had two wounds and two scratches, so in order to not suffer the exorbitant penalty for ending the game with three wounds we both NEEDED to stay in longer than the other. When the dust settled, I made managed to stay in longer than he did (almost outlasting Kozure and Luch despite their substantially bigger starting hands), but ultimately luck didn't last quite long enough. When we tallied the score at the end of the game, it initially looked like Luch was the victor. However, Shemp pointed out how he would have won if he had been the start player for the last two endgame encounters, which prompted me to revisit the last few turns and I realized that he was, in fact, the starting player due to the result of that dragon battle. Shemp won.
It's worth noting that Shemp had SO MANY POINTS that he would have almost won despite the -15 point penalty even if we hadn't noticed the error. He had obviously picked up a lot of 3 VP scrolls over the course of the game! I've always assumed that if you had three wounds you might as well not bother counting points, I guess I was wrong.
Anyway, after such a fun session, I'll be removing it from the trade pile.
El Grande
El Grande was up first. Our last play was november of last year, and I found myself unsure of some of the setup despite this being just about my favorite game. I was dealt Old Castille, Kozure was Valencia, Luch was New Castille and Shemp was Basque.
Our group typically doesn't go out of it's way to practice "Kill the Leader" tactics. This time, we repeated the mantra frequently in order to keep the objective clear. Unsurprisingly, it worked... Whoever pulled out to a lead was quickly pulled back. For example, I was starting to break away when my Grande's province was neutralized by a mobile score board and an influx of other player's cubes. It was never clear who was going to win, and everyone was a contender at one point or another. In the end, Shemp (who struggled in the first three rounds with very few points) managed to win by +/-5 points in a VERY close game for all involved. Maybe 10 points separated us all. I've always loved this game, but this one was particularly excellent and I hope we'll carry forward the aggressive play in future sessions. Kozure mentioned again that this isn't a game he favors, but in my opinion there isn't a game out there that can touch it when 4-5 players want to match wits in a meaty game that offers tough choices and opportunities for clever play in an hour and a half.
As an aside, I used to frequently glide into the last turn as the starting player with my 13 power card, move the king to my advantage and score huge points. Over the years, others have been trying to do the same, so we keep having to start earlier and earlier with the low power cards in order to control the bidding. This week, I managed to pull it off after several games where I failed (Shemp is usually the one who steals it from me), but I had to start in round 5 for it to work. Pretty soon, we'll start off the game with our power cards all planned out for the final round!
Beowulf
Beowulf has been a game that has sat on my trade pile for quite some time, despite the fact that I like it. I didn't think the group liked it much, and the odd pairing of theme and mechanics prevented me from introducing it to others. Turns out that many in the group did like it, but thought I had traded it away long ago so they never requested it. Since I had it in the bag of games, Shemp thought it was time to try it out again (the last time was January 2008).
It's hard to pinpoint exactly why, but I particularly enjoyed this session. The risking felt right, in the sense that it worked often but people who risked too often did get bit on occasion. The was an epic battle at the end at the dragon, which saw many players pull out all the stops and some engage in high stakes risking. Shemp and I where both in a tight spot because we both had two wounds and two scratches, so in order to not suffer the exorbitant penalty for ending the game with three wounds we both NEEDED to stay in longer than the other. When the dust settled, I made managed to stay in longer than he did (almost outlasting Kozure and Luch despite their substantially bigger starting hands), but ultimately luck didn't last quite long enough. When we tallied the score at the end of the game, it initially looked like Luch was the victor. However, Shemp pointed out how he would have won if he had been the start player for the last two endgame encounters, which prompted me to revisit the last few turns and I realized that he was, in fact, the starting player due to the result of that dragon battle. Shemp won.
It's worth noting that Shemp had SO MANY POINTS that he would have almost won despite the -15 point penalty even if we hadn't noticed the error. He had obviously picked up a lot of 3 VP scrolls over the course of the game! I've always assumed that if you had three wounds you might as well not bother counting points, I guess I was wrong.
Anyway, after such a fun session, I'll be removing it from the trade pile.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Goin' Old Skool (El Grande, Tigris and Euphrates, Santiago)
Ah, El Grande. I missed you.
I was thinking the other day that it would be interesting to look up when was the last time I had played a few of the games that I claim are my "favorites". The result was disappointing.
El Grande, probably my favorite game, hadn't been played in nearly a year and a half!
Last week, I brought it along in the hopes that there would be time at the end of the evening, but no dice. Lucky for me, Shemp picked it this week along with Tigris and Euphrates and Santiago.
El Grande
Roughly 4 rounds into the game, Luch was far in the lead, Shemp was in second and Kozure and I were trailing. Luch made an offhanded remark that he was not in the mood to choose intrigue, and simultaneously mentioned that he normally loses at the game. It was a Seinfeld-ian moment, because we all kind of realized he was probably in the lead because he was playing the opposite of the way he normally does (there was a time when Luch was referred to as Hapi on this blog. This was a reference to the fact that He Always Picks Intrigue). Anyway, after the realization, he started choosing Intrigue more, and promptly lost the lead he had.
Shemp leapt into the lead. He managed a couple of very nice point grabs with single caballeros (the efficient, german one, no doubt). I was making a comeback, partly due to the backlash Shemp was receiving for being in first place... but would it be enough?
It was. The last scoring round was unpredictable, but when the dust settled red (me) was in the lead.
Tigris and Euphrates
T&E is my second most played game if you count BGG online games, but my actual face to face games have been few and far between. I love the game, but the analysis paralysis it brings to the table makes it well suited to turn based computer play. Face to face, and with two players much less familiar with the game than Shemp and I, the game played out quite differently. I suppose you could say that with the pressure of time, the game developed less optimally than it typically does online. I developed a long skinny kingdom in the north that I *never* would have built normally. I paid for it, too, because Shemp started disaster tiling in strategic locations to swing vast parts of my kingdom to his control. Kozure had retreated to a corner of the board where he was benefiting from a monument. Luch was the swing in the three way battle going on in the center of the board. Although I had a large presence on the board, my score was weak in blue. When the score was tallied, Shemp was the obvious winner and I was tied for last.
We finished with Santiago. Although we had difficulty remembering to distribute the new money every round, in general the game went smoothly. A large crop of green beans allowed me to win the game. Since Santiago is a difficult game to talk about, I won't really try. Fun, though.
I had a great time playing these older titles. There are certainly some lessons in recent game design that seem to have come in vogue after the release of El Grande and T&E.. notably variable turn order mechanics and downtime minimizing. These aren't things that bother me if the game is engrossing enough, as these ones are for me, but Kozure was visibly "antsy" throughout much of the evening.
Sorry, Kozure. I'll be picking El Grande again in the near future!
I was thinking the other day that it would be interesting to look up when was the last time I had played a few of the games that I claim are my "favorites". The result was disappointing.
El Grande, probably my favorite game, hadn't been played in nearly a year and a half!
Last week, I brought it along in the hopes that there would be time at the end of the evening, but no dice. Lucky for me, Shemp picked it this week along with Tigris and Euphrates and Santiago.
El Grande
Roughly 4 rounds into the game, Luch was far in the lead, Shemp was in second and Kozure and I were trailing. Luch made an offhanded remark that he was not in the mood to choose intrigue, and simultaneously mentioned that he normally loses at the game. It was a Seinfeld-ian moment, because we all kind of realized he was probably in the lead because he was playing the opposite of the way he normally does (there was a time when Luch was referred to as Hapi on this blog. This was a reference to the fact that He Always Picks Intrigue). Anyway, after the realization, he started choosing Intrigue more, and promptly lost the lead he had.
Shemp leapt into the lead. He managed a couple of very nice point grabs with single caballeros (the efficient, german one, no doubt). I was making a comeback, partly due to the backlash Shemp was receiving for being in first place... but would it be enough?
It was. The last scoring round was unpredictable, but when the dust settled red (me) was in the lead.
Tigris and Euphrates
T&E is my second most played game if you count BGG online games, but my actual face to face games have been few and far between. I love the game, but the analysis paralysis it brings to the table makes it well suited to turn based computer play. Face to face, and with two players much less familiar with the game than Shemp and I, the game played out quite differently. I suppose you could say that with the pressure of time, the game developed less optimally than it typically does online. I developed a long skinny kingdom in the north that I *never* would have built normally. I paid for it, too, because Shemp started disaster tiling in strategic locations to swing vast parts of my kingdom to his control. Kozure had retreated to a corner of the board where he was benefiting from a monument. Luch was the swing in the three way battle going on in the center of the board. Although I had a large presence on the board, my score was weak in blue. When the score was tallied, Shemp was the obvious winner and I was tied for last.
We finished with Santiago. Although we had difficulty remembering to distribute the new money every round, in general the game went smoothly. A large crop of green beans allowed me to win the game. Since Santiago is a difficult game to talk about, I won't really try. Fun, though.
I had a great time playing these older titles. There are certainly some lessons in recent game design that seem to have come in vogue after the release of El Grande and T&E.. notably variable turn order mechanics and downtime minimizing. These aren't things that bother me if the game is engrossing enough, as these ones are for me, but Kozure was visibly "antsy" throughout much of the evening.
Sorry, Kozure. I'll be picking El Grande again in the near future!
Friday, September 07, 2007
OK, Maybe I Don't Loathe El Grande as Much as I Used to.
"Don't call it a comeback
I been here for years"
LL Cool J, "Mama Said Knock You Out"
For about a year and a half, my feelings toward El Grande have been somewhat ambivalent. I said on Wednesday night that the way I feel about playing El Grande is probably the way that bands like Taco, Soft Cell or Thomas Dolby feel about the 1980s; it's something that I was good at once but haven't had a hit with for years and would likely never have again.
Never say never.
Celebrating the triumphant return of Shemp, we played an oldie but goodie, the third true Euro introduced to the group after I brought Puerto Rico and Settlers of Catan one fateful weekend, El Grande.
As I alluded to earlier, once I was quite good at this game. I applied my personal experience with strategic wargames, building up powerbases and defending them tenaciously. For about three or four straight gaming sessions of this (and we didn't play it all that often), I was winning consistently and by a fair margin. It was... glorious.
Then it went downhill. My fellow gamers cottoned onto the fact that the game isn't about (well not entirely about) powerbases, and a fluid/dynamic style of play would more often be rewarded with victory. Slowly I slipped down the VP tree, eventually reaching my usual spot of fourth or fifth out of five players, often by quite a wide margin from the first place player. There I have remained for the better part of two years or so, never really managing higher than a third place finish. While I appreciate the skill and challenge of the game, I haven't really enjoyed it very much during most of that period.
Wednesday night, all that changed.
I've abandoned my previous, methodical approach, to adopt what I call the "smash and grab" approach. Most of my bids and moves are aimed at grabbing quick points and spreading my caballeros across the board (but not too thinly) so that all of my resources aren't tied up in the aforementioned powerbases. I defend my Grande, of course, but I also know when to cut losses and either shift the Grande or otherwise abandon it's extra two points to concentrate elsewhere.
Special scoring, mobile scoreboards, and tower scoring are important to this approach. A careful watch on the VP track is also important, as your moves must be geared to giving the least aid to the leader(s) while giving the most to yourself or lower score players.
I'm still no El Grande "Grande", but I've finally pulled myself out of the doldrums of fifth place finishes. Last night's game was very close, with 2-3 points separating each place, and a total of 7 points (I believe) separating the first place player from the last.
Our second game of the evening, Theophrastus was also very close. I came in first with 60 or 61 points, the last place player was 54 (?) - not much wiggle room there. The game is quite different but equally enjoyable with two, three or four players - more strategic with two, much more back-stabby and rapid with four. As I commented last session we played this, Theophrastus has a lot of rules which are easy to forget - for example, in the so-called "scoring round" (which is actually a limited play round before scoring occurs), you are not permitted to discredit other students' or Theophrastus' work, or change any aspect of Theophrastus' formula. In the heat of alchemical battle, this is easy to forget.
Still a very enjoyable game with a lot of opportunity for optimization as well as player interaction. Solid without being stellar.
I believe our generous host Shemp snapped some pics of the VP tracks to commemorate the closeness of the games. I'd also like to thank Shemp for hosting and welcome him back after a long summer hiatus.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Closer
El Grande:
That's showing Kozure @ 110 points, Easy @ 108 points, myself @ 107, and Bharmer @ 106. The closest game of El Grande we've had. The lead changed three times during the scoring of the final province! A squeaker, big-time.
Theophrastus:
As you can see, really close scores here, too. AND there were close through all three rounds. In fact, after the second round, you can see that our cumulative scores (in the squares) were 26,26,27, and 27. Not very good scores, but close ones, indeed. Kozure won w/ 60, and I brought up the rear w/ 54. An extremely evenly matched night made for a thrilling return!
That's showing Kozure @ 110 points, Easy @ 108 points, myself @ 107, and Bharmer @ 106. The closest game of El Grande we've had. The lead changed three times during the scoring of the final province! A squeaker, big-time.
Theophrastus:
As you can see, really close scores here, too. AND there were close through all three rounds. In fact, after the second round, you can see that our cumulative scores (in the squares) were 26,26,27, and 27. Not very good scores, but close ones, indeed. Kozure won w/ 60, and I brought up the rear w/ 54. An extremely evenly matched night made for a thrilling return!
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Where's the Sheriff hidin'? (El Grande, Way Out West)
Luch's pick this week. JayWowzer was along for the ride.
El Grande
We started out with El Grande... one of my all time favorite games (and oldest... it's the second Euro I purchased, right after Puerto Rico...). I like puzzles more than I like math, so I tend to favor games where I'm trying to work out the best move rather than constanly adding. El Grande has a bit of both (as you weigh the pros and cons of various moves), but I beleive that winning the game has more to do with intuitively manipulating the board and second guessing your opponents than with min/maxing every individual move. Either way, the end result is extremely fun for me. It's definitely a thinker, though, and not what I'd call a lively game. Thank goodness there is enough chaos in the game that thinking too far ahead simply isn't possible.
In this particular session I came out with an early lead thanks to good scoring positions in various regions and a solid string of "special scoring: choose one region" actions. In fact, leading into the last third of the game, I was ahead by a good 20 points. Of course, as everyone knows El Grande is not the game where you want to be identified as the leader, and the last three rounds saw my position on the board chiselled away rather quickly (by the way, from a design perspective one of the things I apreciate most about El Grande is the way that the action cards permit leader bashing but in an oblique way... a player is free to determine how an action will be used, but he/she is limited to the actions available).
As the final scoring occured, I saw the entire pack of players come screaming towards me on the scoring track. Luch, Bharmer and JayWowzer all came within striking distance but in the end I held on by 1-2 points. Fun.
Way Out West
Up next was Way Out West, the very interesting brain buster by Martin Wallace. Every single time I play this I fail to fully comprehend the way the endgame scoring works. For whatever reason, I am attracted to going for the town bonuses but largely through cattle. I never seem to finish a game with much BUILT. Then, I watch helplessly as the other players rake in the building VPs. This game should have played out similarly, since I did the same things I always do, except that this time it led to a surprise victory! Here is the long list of unlikely events which conspired to make a losing strategy the winner:
1) Luch, the player with the most building leading into the final rounds, had several buildings stolen from him. This resulted in no players having a significant lead in buildings... an unusual end condition which diluted their scoring power
2) Luch was also the most combatitive player. By all rights, he should have had 2-3 times the amount of wanted posters the rest of us had. Unfortunatley (for him) he lost FAR more times than he won... even when the odds were well on his side.
3) In my last turn, I saw two opportunities to gain majorities in various towns. I had to win to gunfights, and the best odds I had were 50%. Although according to the odds I should have won 1 or none of the conflicts, I won both and grabbed the majorities (largely from JayWowzer).
4) The Sherrif afforded to a player for owning the Jail proved to be a curse throughout the game. Luch owned most of the jails, and he lost just about every battle he used him in. I could have used my sherrif in one of my two final battles with JayWowzer, but accepted a 50/50 battle instead of throwing him in, suspecting the corruption would undo me as well!
Anyway, it's a fun game (this is a game where the heavy luck factor seems in keeping with the theme, so despite the fact that the strategy it demands can easily be undone by a few bad gunfights the whole thing seems to work anyway).
A stats expert might know this for sure, but I have a strong feeling that a slight numeric superiority in a Way Out West gun battle is a dissadvantage when there are a lot of participants. For example, if the battle is 2 vs 1, there is only a 33% chance that the single gunman will score a hit before the others can react. However, in a 5 vs 4 battle, the odds are quite high that 1-2 hits will occur before the other side shoots back (meaning that 4 vs 4 might have been a safer option).
El Grande
We started out with El Grande... one of my all time favorite games (and oldest... it's the second Euro I purchased, right after Puerto Rico...). I like puzzles more than I like math, so I tend to favor games where I'm trying to work out the best move rather than constanly adding. El Grande has a bit of both (as you weigh the pros and cons of various moves), but I beleive that winning the game has more to do with intuitively manipulating the board and second guessing your opponents than with min/maxing every individual move. Either way, the end result is extremely fun for me. It's definitely a thinker, though, and not what I'd call a lively game. Thank goodness there is enough chaos in the game that thinking too far ahead simply isn't possible.
In this particular session I came out with an early lead thanks to good scoring positions in various regions and a solid string of "special scoring: choose one region" actions. In fact, leading into the last third of the game, I was ahead by a good 20 points. Of course, as everyone knows El Grande is not the game where you want to be identified as the leader, and the last three rounds saw my position on the board chiselled away rather quickly (by the way, from a design perspective one of the things I apreciate most about El Grande is the way that the action cards permit leader bashing but in an oblique way... a player is free to determine how an action will be used, but he/she is limited to the actions available).
As the final scoring occured, I saw the entire pack of players come screaming towards me on the scoring track. Luch, Bharmer and JayWowzer all came within striking distance but in the end I held on by 1-2 points. Fun.
Way Out West
Up next was Way Out West, the very interesting brain buster by Martin Wallace. Every single time I play this I fail to fully comprehend the way the endgame scoring works. For whatever reason, I am attracted to going for the town bonuses but largely through cattle. I never seem to finish a game with much BUILT. Then, I watch helplessly as the other players rake in the building VPs. This game should have played out similarly, since I did the same things I always do, except that this time it led to a surprise victory! Here is the long list of unlikely events which conspired to make a losing strategy the winner:
1) Luch, the player with the most building leading into the final rounds, had several buildings stolen from him. This resulted in no players having a significant lead in buildings... an unusual end condition which diluted their scoring power
2) Luch was also the most combatitive player. By all rights, he should have had 2-3 times the amount of wanted posters the rest of us had. Unfortunatley (for him) he lost FAR more times than he won... even when the odds were well on his side.
3) In my last turn, I saw two opportunities to gain majorities in various towns. I had to win to gunfights, and the best odds I had were 50%. Although according to the odds I should have won 1 or none of the conflicts, I won both and grabbed the majorities (largely from JayWowzer).
4) The Sherrif afforded to a player for owning the Jail proved to be a curse throughout the game. Luch owned most of the jails, and he lost just about every battle he used him in. I could have used my sherrif in one of my two final battles with JayWowzer, but accepted a 50/50 battle instead of throwing him in, suspecting the corruption would undo me as well!
Anyway, it's a fun game (this is a game where the heavy luck factor seems in keeping with the theme, so despite the fact that the strategy it demands can easily be undone by a few bad gunfights the whole thing seems to work anyway).
A stats expert might know this for sure, but I have a strong feeling that a slight numeric superiority in a Way Out West gun battle is a dissadvantage when there are a lot of participants. For example, if the battle is 2 vs 1, there is only a 33% chance that the single gunman will score a hit before the others can react. However, in a 5 vs 4 battle, the odds are quite high that 1-2 hits will occur before the other side shoots back (meaning that 4 vs 4 might have been a safer option).
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.
Friday, July 07, 2006
Control your Areas (China x2, El Grande, Saboteur)
Area control was the theme of the evening. China, El Grande and Louis XIV were chosen, but we ran out of time and had to substitute Saboteur for Louis.
The first game we played was 3 player, my favorite number for China. At 3, you can react to what is going on and feel like you have some control over the board. At the other end of the scale, too much happens between turns and I feel like my only option is to see "what points can I score/ secure RIGHT NOW", with no regard to long term strategy. Shemp and I went for a balanced approach between roads, houses and advisors. Luch, who often uses the advisor angle, did so again to good effect: when all was said and done, he made huge gains and leaped to the forefront. Lucky for me, I was the only one to complete a long road, and those 4 points gave me a slim victory.
Bharmer then arrived and we played a second game with four. He had never played before, but as usual he picked up pretty quick. He and Luch fought over advisors, while I went for a house/ long road strategy. Bharmer made impressive gains on his placements at the end, but I received 20 points from a well placed fortification (12 for a 6 segment road, and 8 for the majority in the region) and won again. I was shaping up to be a good night for me! I don't think the other players were very comfortable with the fortification pieces, since Shemp was the only one to actually play his. In both games, this probably gave me a bit of an unfair advantage.
El Grande, the king of Area Control games, was next. I am always excited when we can play this, particularly with 5 players. Luch had talked it up to Bharmer, so I think he was quite looking forward to it as well.
It was a fun game, and unusual in the sense that the cards which came up consolidated our caballeros more than usual, and several were removed. The result was that each player had just a few concentrations in 3 or 4 regions (often predermining who might fight for 2nd or 3rd in a region). I had the lead for most of the game, but Shemp eventually breezed past me and managed to hold on to the lead. I think Bharmer came in second, which is pretty impressive for the first time out (I don't know about you, but I was pretty clueless the first time I played EG). The only downside is that things were moving a little slower than usual, but that might be because we had a new player and none of us had played for a while.
Saboteur was reasonably fun, but something needs to be done about the card mix. The game always seems heavily balanced for or against the saboteurs, meaning that whichever side wins the first hand will likely win EVERY subsequent hand unless the number of players changes. Too bad, because it's an interesting concept and simple enough to play with a wide group of people... it just needs better tension. Maybe I'll buy a 2nd copy used and try to add more "good" labyrinth pieces, relying on the hazards and rockfalls to aid the saboteurs. Either way, priority= low.
The first game we played was 3 player, my favorite number for China. At 3, you can react to what is going on and feel like you have some control over the board. At the other end of the scale, too much happens between turns and I feel like my only option is to see "what points can I score/ secure RIGHT NOW", with no regard to long term strategy. Shemp and I went for a balanced approach between roads, houses and advisors. Luch, who often uses the advisor angle, did so again to good effect: when all was said and done, he made huge gains and leaped to the forefront. Lucky for me, I was the only one to complete a long road, and those 4 points gave me a slim victory.
Bharmer then arrived and we played a second game with four. He had never played before, but as usual he picked up pretty quick. He and Luch fought over advisors, while I went for a house/ long road strategy. Bharmer made impressive gains on his placements at the end, but I received 20 points from a well placed fortification (12 for a 6 segment road, and 8 for the majority in the region) and won again. I was shaping up to be a good night for me! I don't think the other players were very comfortable with the fortification pieces, since Shemp was the only one to actually play his. In both games, this probably gave me a bit of an unfair advantage.
El Grande, the king of Area Control games, was next. I am always excited when we can play this, particularly with 5 players. Luch had talked it up to Bharmer, so I think he was quite looking forward to it as well.
It was a fun game, and unusual in the sense that the cards which came up consolidated our caballeros more than usual, and several were removed. The result was that each player had just a few concentrations in 3 or 4 regions (often predermining who might fight for 2nd or 3rd in a region). I had the lead for most of the game, but Shemp eventually breezed past me and managed to hold on to the lead. I think Bharmer came in second, which is pretty impressive for the first time out (I don't know about you, but I was pretty clueless the first time I played EG). The only downside is that things were moving a little slower than usual, but that might be because we had a new player and none of us had played for a while.
Saboteur was reasonably fun, but something needs to be done about the card mix. The game always seems heavily balanced for or against the saboteurs, meaning that whichever side wins the first hand will likely win EVERY subsequent hand unless the number of players changes. Too bad, because it's an interesting concept and simple enough to play with a wide group of people... it just needs better tension. Maybe I'll buy a 2nd copy used and try to add more "good" labyrinth pieces, relying on the hazards and rockfalls to aid the saboteurs. Either way, priority= low.
Friday, August 26, 2005
Shadows Over The Castillo
Well, no fancy first-person narratives this time, just straight reporting.
We were joined by the lovely and talented Sonja this week, who proved to be both an able teammate in Shadows Over Camelot and a cagey competitor in El Grande. Everyone seemed to get along famously and we're hoping she can join us again in the future.
Shadows Over Camelot began the evening. We have played and discussed the game here on the blog before, so I won't get into details about mechanics or components. SoC remains a somewhat so-so game for me, though I do look forward to playing it when it is brought out. I say "so-so" because I can't help feeling that the challenges are too many and the sense of accomplishment too little - much less than LotR. I enjoy SoC slightly more than LotR, but for different reasons.
This time, with five players, we thought that there might be the chance to accomplish more. We actually did, losing only 7 black swords to 5 white, and two of those black swords were flipped over white swords by the traitor, who managed to remain (mostly) undetected throughout the game. More on that later.
With all of us, including Sonja, knowing pretty much what had to be done, there was a lot more table talk about where to go and how to assign people. Also, people took more time to make sure they used their special powers effectively. Sonja was Sir Palomedes, Shemp was King Arthur, Hapi was Sir Kay, I was sir Percival. I believe Easy was Sir Gawain. Due to some cognitive dissonance, some of us kept moving the knight that was their traditional colour, but after a few rounds, we got straightened out.
I went immediately to the Black Knight quest, while Hapi beelined for the Grail, Shemp to Excalibur and Easy stuck around in the castle to draw extra cards.
We made a good dent in the grail quest early through a combination of removing desolation and despair cards with Merlin cards. We might have won it earlier but for a string of despair and desolation cards which seemed to come up in rapid succession. I managed to pull off the Black Knight joust, winning handily. Shemp attempted the Excalibur quest, but hadn't made much progress when he flipped over to the grail quest. We were slapped with a Mists of Avalon card and voted against stopping it (we would regret that later). I had moved over to the Saxon invasion while the rest alternated between the Picts and the Grail. Sonja and I fought off the Picts, and the others won the Grail quest with some teamwork, but in the meantime, the catapults were piling up and the Lancelot quest was lost. Someone (Hapi, I believe) had played the heroism card on the Grail quest, so we earned a whopping four white swords from its completion.
Around this time, Sonja played a card which she misread as revealing the traitor. In actuality, it said "reveal yourself if you ARE the traitor". Unfortunately, this caused Shemp to begin turning over his card. When someone pointed out that the card didn't say to reveal the traitor, Shemp quickly flipped his card face-down again. Sonja and Hapi missed this subtle hand motion, but both Easy and I noticed his slip. However, as this was an error, both of us decided independently to proceed as if we didn't know who the traitor was, though certainly we scruntinized Shemp's moves from then on for any excuse to believe that he was the traitor. Unfortunately Shemp was a cunning enough foe that neither of us felt that his actions were traitorous enough to warrant an accusation for the rest of the game.
Ignoring this accidental revelation, we continued playing, fighting off the Pict invasion and starting the Dragon Quest while simultaneously killing catapults. We were actually up to seven white swords and four black when a failed quest caused another black to be placed, ending the game. Because Shemp had gone undiscovered, two of our seven white swords were flipped to black.
In the end, the tally was 4 white swords for succeeding at the grail quest with heroism; 1 sword each for the Black Knight, Pict and Saxon Quests. (7 white)
Black swords came from failing the lancelot quest (2 black, due to "mists") and the Excalibur quest (2 or 3 black?). I can't remember which quest was failed that earned us the final game-ending black sword.
Once again, this game is challenging, but it's apparent that it's not all luck. Luck IS a major factor, but good teamwork, experience and skillful gameplay can help to mitigate. One thing that did happen this game is that poor Hapi got stuck on the grail quest for a major portion of the game - he was basically doing the same thing over and over every turn. Easy mentioned that this is an occasional complaint about the game in general.
El Grande with five players is also challenging - and a little too slow for my liking, but not bad. Sonja did excellently in picking up the game quickly and catching on to the ebb and flow of caballero placement. I managed to alter my strategy from a wargame-based "take and hold territory" strategy to the more sucessful "fluid placement and grab points whereever and whenever you can" strategy. This approach was much more successful for me this time, and I managed to earn first place as a result. All of our scores were higher than usual, which is promising, since I believe the tendency is to get lower scores with more players. Sonja finished with a respectable score, even more respectable for the fact that this was her first time playing, in a five-player game, with relatively experienced players, no less.
A very enjoyable evening, made even more enjoyable by a new and friendly face in the form of Sonja. (And everyone loves the Castillo).
We were joined by the lovely and talented Sonja this week, who proved to be both an able teammate in Shadows Over Camelot and a cagey competitor in El Grande. Everyone seemed to get along famously and we're hoping she can join us again in the future.
Shadows Over Camelot began the evening. We have played and discussed the game here on the blog before, so I won't get into details about mechanics or components. SoC remains a somewhat so-so game for me, though I do look forward to playing it when it is brought out. I say "so-so" because I can't help feeling that the challenges are too many and the sense of accomplishment too little - much less than LotR. I enjoy SoC slightly more than LotR, but for different reasons.
This time, with five players, we thought that there might be the chance to accomplish more. We actually did, losing only 7 black swords to 5 white, and two of those black swords were flipped over white swords by the traitor, who managed to remain (mostly) undetected throughout the game. More on that later.
With all of us, including Sonja, knowing pretty much what had to be done, there was a lot more table talk about where to go and how to assign people. Also, people took more time to make sure they used their special powers effectively. Sonja was Sir Palomedes, Shemp was King Arthur, Hapi was Sir Kay, I was sir Percival. I believe Easy was Sir Gawain. Due to some cognitive dissonance, some of us kept moving the knight that was their traditional colour, but after a few rounds, we got straightened out.
I went immediately to the Black Knight quest, while Hapi beelined for the Grail, Shemp to Excalibur and Easy stuck around in the castle to draw extra cards.
We made a good dent in the grail quest early through a combination of removing desolation and despair cards with Merlin cards. We might have won it earlier but for a string of despair and desolation cards which seemed to come up in rapid succession. I managed to pull off the Black Knight joust, winning handily. Shemp attempted the Excalibur quest, but hadn't made much progress when he flipped over to the grail quest. We were slapped with a Mists of Avalon card and voted against stopping it (we would regret that later). I had moved over to the Saxon invasion while the rest alternated between the Picts and the Grail. Sonja and I fought off the Picts, and the others won the Grail quest with some teamwork, but in the meantime, the catapults were piling up and the Lancelot quest was lost. Someone (Hapi, I believe) had played the heroism card on the Grail quest, so we earned a whopping four white swords from its completion.
Around this time, Sonja played a card which she misread as revealing the traitor. In actuality, it said "reveal yourself if you ARE the traitor". Unfortunately, this caused Shemp to begin turning over his card. When someone pointed out that the card didn't say to reveal the traitor, Shemp quickly flipped his card face-down again. Sonja and Hapi missed this subtle hand motion, but both Easy and I noticed his slip. However, as this was an error, both of us decided independently to proceed as if we didn't know who the traitor was, though certainly we scruntinized Shemp's moves from then on for any excuse to believe that he was the traitor. Unfortunately Shemp was a cunning enough foe that neither of us felt that his actions were traitorous enough to warrant an accusation for the rest of the game.
Ignoring this accidental revelation, we continued playing, fighting off the Pict invasion and starting the Dragon Quest while simultaneously killing catapults. We were actually up to seven white swords and four black when a failed quest caused another black to be placed, ending the game. Because Shemp had gone undiscovered, two of our seven white swords were flipped to black.
In the end, the tally was 4 white swords for succeeding at the grail quest with heroism; 1 sword each for the Black Knight, Pict and Saxon Quests. (7 white)
Black swords came from failing the lancelot quest (2 black, due to "mists") and the Excalibur quest (2 or 3 black?). I can't remember which quest was failed that earned us the final game-ending black sword.
Once again, this game is challenging, but it's apparent that it's not all luck. Luck IS a major factor, but good teamwork, experience and skillful gameplay can help to mitigate. One thing that did happen this game is that poor Hapi got stuck on the grail quest for a major portion of the game - he was basically doing the same thing over and over every turn. Easy mentioned that this is an occasional complaint about the game in general.
El Grande with five players is also challenging - and a little too slow for my liking, but not bad. Sonja did excellently in picking up the game quickly and catching on to the ebb and flow of caballero placement. I managed to alter my strategy from a wargame-based "take and hold territory" strategy to the more sucessful "fluid placement and grab points whereever and whenever you can" strategy. This approach was much more successful for me this time, and I managed to earn first place as a result. All of our scores were higher than usual, which is promising, since I believe the tendency is to get lower scores with more players. Sonja finished with a respectable score, even more respectable for the fact that this was her first time playing, in a five-player game, with relatively experienced players, no less.
A very enjoyable evening, made even more enjoyable by a new and friendly face in the form of Sonja. (And everyone loves the Castillo).
Thursday, March 10, 2005
2 Games. No Theme.
Here we are, two weeks later (we missed last week due to scheduling conflicts). I hate it when real life intrudes on us!
It was my pick, and I had a hanckerin' for two of my favorites... El Grande and Duel of Ages.
El Grande continues to be right at the top of my list of games. I really enjoy the tension created by the mechanics (bidding, choosing action cards, scoring)... I find myself engaged at all times. There is also a real challenge in improving your position while keeping the leader(s) down. Since you only get one action per turn, and that action is limited by the choices offered by the "Action Cards" (and further by those that are left by the time you get to choose!), it's not nearly as easy to "kill the leader" as it can be in other open scoring games. If I had to find fault with the game, it would be that it can be quite difficult to stop a runaway leader.
In this game, things were quite tight until the third round, at which point Tili rocketed out in the lead. We actually gave a shot at stopping her (we have a tendency to focus more on improving our own position), but it wasn't enough... For the record, I was dead last!
Next up was Duel of Ages. We played a 3 platter board, with 4 players, and 4 characters each. We had the four labyrinths, the Royal Tournament, the Lith Alliance and the Field of Honour in play. I made up two house rules... First, each player gets dealt 5 pieces of equipment to start, then keeps one. Second, if a character dies, it is replaced at the end of that player's next turn. Rather than most characters counting for victory points, the most kills counts.
When played with the expansions, this game can get pretty chaotic. Case in point, of my 4 characters, 3 were decidely wierd. I had a brain with mind control powers, a futuristic creature called Paradox which reverses nearby character's stats, and a humble villager who is very difficult to hit because (arbitrarily, it seems) odd rolls cannot hit him.Paradox and the brain teamed up to take on the Royal Tournament (since the Brain's normally pathetic nearly all black stats were transformed to all white in it's presence). On another occasion, Shemp's Arden Glynn was ambushed and killed by a lethal combination of having his good stats reversed while being fired on by a prety good gun by a pretty good shot (my fourth character, who's name I forget). Probably the worst problem for the opposing team, however, was that their inital advantage of 3 starting henchmen was eventually neutralized by the Brain's mind control. By the end, 3 of their characters had defected to our side!
Still, it was far from a runaway victory. As mentioned above, Shemp and Luch started with 3 henchmen in addition to their starting characters. They quickly pulled ahead in points and we would have had a very difficult time catching up if we hadn't been so succesful killing and mind controlling their characters. We pulled ahead in the final few rounds of the game.
Unfortunately, Shemp was pretty frustrated by the wierd characters. (The scenario where the Brain was succesfully thumping Arden Glynn to a pulp due to reversed stats courtesy of Paradox in particular seemed to bother him). I doubt anyone would argue this is an elegant game. Fiddly rules abound, exceptions aren't rare, and characters do not always appear balanced. I still find it quite fun, though. I think part of it is that events can be more memorable in this game than many others. A clever or unexpected combination of equipment and characters, an unlikely set of rolls whcih gives the underdog a surprise victory, a plan which comes toghether to turn the tables for the losing team, etc, are all things which I enjoy. It sits somewhere between a Eurogame and a role playing game (I don't think anyone would argue that RPGs aren't also fiddly, exception filled and often at the mercy of luck).
The Field of Honour is obviously awkward, though. First of all, the requirement for a weapon of the appropriate skill type means that it is rarely used. Second, the revision to give both characters the same weapon certainly levels the playing field, but also forces such clunky "exceptions"... such as the challenged character is exempt from the weapon's minimum requirements for the Duel. I'm sure the designers came to this decision due to playtesting concerns, but it flies against logic and seems unecessary.
I will say this: Now that I own most of the expansions, I'm happy to play with them. However, if I were to do it again, I probably wouldn't buy them. The two base sets (Worldspanner and Intensity) have enough variety while keeping things more or less "sane".
It was my pick, and I had a hanckerin' for two of my favorites... El Grande and Duel of Ages.
El Grande continues to be right at the top of my list of games. I really enjoy the tension created by the mechanics (bidding, choosing action cards, scoring)... I find myself engaged at all times. There is also a real challenge in improving your position while keeping the leader(s) down. Since you only get one action per turn, and that action is limited by the choices offered by the "Action Cards" (and further by those that are left by the time you get to choose!), it's not nearly as easy to "kill the leader" as it can be in other open scoring games. If I had to find fault with the game, it would be that it can be quite difficult to stop a runaway leader.
In this game, things were quite tight until the third round, at which point Tili rocketed out in the lead. We actually gave a shot at stopping her (we have a tendency to focus more on improving our own position), but it wasn't enough... For the record, I was dead last!
Next up was Duel of Ages. We played a 3 platter board, with 4 players, and 4 characters each. We had the four labyrinths, the Royal Tournament, the Lith Alliance and the Field of Honour in play. I made up two house rules... First, each player gets dealt 5 pieces of equipment to start, then keeps one. Second, if a character dies, it is replaced at the end of that player's next turn. Rather than most characters counting for victory points, the most kills counts.
When played with the expansions, this game can get pretty chaotic. Case in point, of my 4 characters, 3 were decidely wierd. I had a brain with mind control powers, a futuristic creature called Paradox which reverses nearby character's stats, and a humble villager who is very difficult to hit because (arbitrarily, it seems) odd rolls cannot hit him.Paradox and the brain teamed up to take on the Royal Tournament (since the Brain's normally pathetic nearly all black stats were transformed to all white in it's presence). On another occasion, Shemp's Arden Glynn was ambushed and killed by a lethal combination of having his good stats reversed while being fired on by a prety good gun by a pretty good shot (my fourth character, who's name I forget). Probably the worst problem for the opposing team, however, was that their inital advantage of 3 starting henchmen was eventually neutralized by the Brain's mind control. By the end, 3 of their characters had defected to our side!
Still, it was far from a runaway victory. As mentioned above, Shemp and Luch started with 3 henchmen in addition to their starting characters. They quickly pulled ahead in points and we would have had a very difficult time catching up if we hadn't been so succesful killing and mind controlling their characters. We pulled ahead in the final few rounds of the game.
Unfortunately, Shemp was pretty frustrated by the wierd characters. (The scenario where the Brain was succesfully thumping Arden Glynn to a pulp due to reversed stats courtesy of Paradox in particular seemed to bother him). I doubt anyone would argue this is an elegant game. Fiddly rules abound, exceptions aren't rare, and characters do not always appear balanced. I still find it quite fun, though. I think part of it is that events can be more memorable in this game than many others. A clever or unexpected combination of equipment and characters, an unlikely set of rolls whcih gives the underdog a surprise victory, a plan which comes toghether to turn the tables for the losing team, etc, are all things which I enjoy. It sits somewhere between a Eurogame and a role playing game (I don't think anyone would argue that RPGs aren't also fiddly, exception filled and often at the mercy of luck).
The Field of Honour is obviously awkward, though. First of all, the requirement for a weapon of the appropriate skill type means that it is rarely used. Second, the revision to give both characters the same weapon certainly levels the playing field, but also forces such clunky "exceptions"... such as the challenged character is exempt from the weapon's minimum requirements for the Duel. I'm sure the designers came to this decision due to playtesting concerns, but it flies against logic and seems unecessary.
I will say this: Now that I own most of the expansions, I'm happy to play with them. However, if I were to do it again, I probably wouldn't buy them. The two base sets (Worldspanner and Intensity) have enough variety while keeping things more or less "sane".
Thursday, December 02, 2004
Return of the King
This Wednesday we played two games which look similar on the surface, but are substantially different in practice... El Grande and Risk (Lord of the Rings Edition).
First up was El Grande. Frankly, I'm surprised at how long it's been since we've played this one. It' s probably my favorite game, yet there has been a constant flow of new games, or games I'd like a second crack at, keeping this one off the radar for a while. Either way, I'm happy we played it! The game started with Shemp letting us all know that he had been on the 'Geek, and come up with a new strategery to try out. OF course, that's all it took for us all to target him as the leader! Unfortunately, it was to no avail... in the end he won by ONE POINT. I say that with all caps because I was the one who came in second... Always nice to see a photo finish.
Second was RISK, Lord of the Rings Edition. All of us had played standard RISK before except for Shemp. After a brief recap, and an overview of the considerable changes specific to this edition, we got going. True, this is still RISK... and the game is therefore somewhat "simple" in concept and execution compared to most of our other "big" boardgames (think El Grande, Ideology, Civilization, etc), but the changes bring enough to the table to make this a pretty fun game. The movement of the ring eliminates the original's two biggest flaws... player elimination and eternal game length; the leaders, Keeps, places of power and missions add depth and strategy options completely missing in the original; the instants and events add a fun level of surprise; and finally the board and pieces are pretty attractive.
The game saw me and Shemp as good while Kozure and Luch were evil. It's a shame that this distinction has nothing to do with the game other than inital placement (and a few card mechanics). Having the good somehow work together, somehow related to the movement of the ring, might have brought the game closer to the actual theme. As it is, me and Shemp started doing what we do best... fighting each other (in the North-West) at the expense of either of our chances. Meanwhile, Kozure and Luch were amassing armies and territories to the East. Kozure was dragged into a few fights he didn't do to well in (the dice were not his friends this night), leaving Luch and his massive hordes with total control of two regions and a runaway win by the time the ringbearers made it off the map.
I had a great time, and I have to say that I was very surprised to get a whole game of Risk in after El Grande while still being out by 11pm!
Note to self: Saying "Really?!!! You're going to do that? Are you sure?" never actually deters a player from making a good move against me.
RISK (Lord of the Rings edition): 7
Easy
First up was El Grande. Frankly, I'm surprised at how long it's been since we've played this one. It' s probably my favorite game, yet there has been a constant flow of new games, or games I'd like a second crack at, keeping this one off the radar for a while. Either way, I'm happy we played it! The game started with Shemp letting us all know that he had been on the 'Geek, and come up with a new strategery to try out. OF course, that's all it took for us all to target him as the leader! Unfortunately, it was to no avail... in the end he won by ONE POINT. I say that with all caps because I was the one who came in second... Always nice to see a photo finish.
Second was RISK, Lord of the Rings Edition. All of us had played standard RISK before except for Shemp. After a brief recap, and an overview of the considerable changes specific to this edition, we got going. True, this is still RISK... and the game is therefore somewhat "simple" in concept and execution compared to most of our other "big" boardgames (think El Grande, Ideology, Civilization, etc), but the changes bring enough to the table to make this a pretty fun game. The movement of the ring eliminates the original's two biggest flaws... player elimination and eternal game length; the leaders, Keeps, places of power and missions add depth and strategy options completely missing in the original; the instants and events add a fun level of surprise; and finally the board and pieces are pretty attractive.
The game saw me and Shemp as good while Kozure and Luch were evil. It's a shame that this distinction has nothing to do with the game other than inital placement (and a few card mechanics). Having the good somehow work together, somehow related to the movement of the ring, might have brought the game closer to the actual theme. As it is, me and Shemp started doing what we do best... fighting each other (in the North-West) at the expense of either of our chances. Meanwhile, Kozure and Luch were amassing armies and territories to the East. Kozure was dragged into a few fights he didn't do to well in (the dice were not his friends this night), leaving Luch and his massive hordes with total control of two regions and a runaway win by the time the ringbearers made it off the map.
I had a great time, and I have to say that I was very surprised to get a whole game of Risk in after El Grande while still being out by 11pm!
Note to self: Saying "Really?!!! You're going to do that? Are you sure?" never actually deters a player from making a good move against me.
RISK (Lord of the Rings edition): 7
Easy
Thursday, July 22, 2004
El Grande becomes...Gigante
Last night we played the El Grande Expansions for the first time (both the "King and Intrigue" and the "Grand Inquisitor and Colonies" in two separate sessions). It was an interesting experience for a couple of reasons:
1) I remembered, and relived, how LOST I was the first time I played the game.
2) El Grande already ranks as one of my favorite games (top 2), so changing it for the better would be difficult to do.
The verdict? I had a good time, but I had the sense that the expansions are really targeted to people who have played the existing game and are looking for variety.
The first expansion changed the flavour of the game by giving players the opportunity to predefine the actions they hope to get during the game, which would probably be a great change if you really knew how every card impacted the game... but we haven't played enough to know that so it ended up being pretty random. The whole thing felt, to me, very different than the basic game... even though on the surface it seemed like the less drastic of the two expansions.
Shemp won this one, but to be honest I felt so "lost" for strategy when playing it that I can't really even guess how he won, or why we lost. It was all a bit of a haze... One thing was clear, he got way more caballeros on the board way faster than we did. He pulled out to an early lead and we never caught up. With only four players, only two "actions" ever happen (since the highest bid is always the king, and the lowest is always the intriguant). This made the turns go faster, but also made them a bit monotonous for me.
If the first expansion is about re-interpreting the basic game, the second is more about adding to it. New territories, goods, tables limiting the number of caballeros in a region and, last but not least, the grand inquisitor all extend the scope of the game. Personally, I felt that this expansion seemed like "El Grande Extreme"... A more complex version of the same game. Again, a good idea if you are bored with the original, but not necessary yet for me. The grand inquisitor was an interesting addition (a phantom exra player), but the goods seemed unbalanced to the point that I am left wondering if there could be a successful strategy other than racing to get them. Lastly, The limiting table was kind of a non-issue... if it wasn't refered to by some cards, I'm sure you could take it out and not feel much of an impact either way.
In the end, it boiled down to Kozure being the "Uber-Inquisitor" vs my race for gold and goods (Shemp and ????? were to busy fighting over Grenada).
I won! Go Goods and Gold!
Between the two, I preferred the Grand Inquisitor version. It diffused some aspects of the game that I enjoy (bidding for limited actions, fighting on a crowded board, properly using the castillo, etc) but added new opportunities and strategies at the same time. I'd play both of them again, but for a little while I think that I will stick to the basic game for most sessions...
No rating, for now.
1) I remembered, and relived, how LOST I was the first time I played the game.
2) El Grande already ranks as one of my favorite games (top 2), so changing it for the better would be difficult to do.
The verdict? I had a good time, but I had the sense that the expansions are really targeted to people who have played the existing game and are looking for variety.
The first expansion changed the flavour of the game by giving players the opportunity to predefine the actions they hope to get during the game, which would probably be a great change if you really knew how every card impacted the game... but we haven't played enough to know that so it ended up being pretty random. The whole thing felt, to me, very different than the basic game... even though on the surface it seemed like the less drastic of the two expansions.
Shemp won this one, but to be honest I felt so "lost" for strategy when playing it that I can't really even guess how he won, or why we lost. It was all a bit of a haze... One thing was clear, he got way more caballeros on the board way faster than we did. He pulled out to an early lead and we never caught up. With only four players, only two "actions" ever happen (since the highest bid is always the king, and the lowest is always the intriguant). This made the turns go faster, but also made them a bit monotonous for me.
If the first expansion is about re-interpreting the basic game, the second is more about adding to it. New territories, goods, tables limiting the number of caballeros in a region and, last but not least, the grand inquisitor all extend the scope of the game. Personally, I felt that this expansion seemed like "El Grande Extreme"... A more complex version of the same game. Again, a good idea if you are bored with the original, but not necessary yet for me. The grand inquisitor was an interesting addition (a phantom exra player), but the goods seemed unbalanced to the point that I am left wondering if there could be a successful strategy other than racing to get them. Lastly, The limiting table was kind of a non-issue... if it wasn't refered to by some cards, I'm sure you could take it out and not feel much of an impact either way.
In the end, it boiled down to Kozure being the "Uber-Inquisitor" vs my race for gold and goods (Shemp and ????? were to busy fighting over Grenada).
I won! Go Goods and Gold!
Between the two, I preferred the Grand Inquisitor version. It diffused some aspects of the game that I enjoy (bidding for limited actions, fighting on a crowded board, properly using the castillo, etc) but added new opportunities and strategies at the same time. I'd play both of them again, but for a little while I think that I will stick to the basic game for most sessions...
No rating, for now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
