Avalon Hill, we hardly knew Ye (Nexu Ops, Vegas showdown)

Poor Avalon Hill. They decide to make Euro-influenced games and then, despite good reception from the game community, shuts down the line after the sales don't meet mass-market expectations. This week, we played a couple of the better ones: Nexus Ops and Vegas Showdown (for the record, Robo-Rally is another excellent game from this line, even though we didn't play it tonight)

Nexus Ops

In the hopes that Nexus Ops played better with three than it does with two, we set up and started battling. I drew the "Hit 'em where it hurts" secret mission and noticed that Bharmer was a little soft in his base defense, so I went on a rampage. It was a gamble from the start, and I can say unequivicaly that it didn't pan out. Over the course of repeated attempts, I Bharmer and I waged mutual destruction without any real advance. Meanwhile, Kozure spread out over 50% of the board and was generating a very good income. Having been thwarted with Bharmer, I amassed a sizeable army and came down on Kozure's dragon (which was accompanied by a few other units). He played a card which reversed the order of attacks and then tore me to shreds before my expensive units could do anything.

Needless to say, I didn't win. Kozure continues his big year with another decisive win in the plains of Rubium.

It was a fun game. I'm glad I have Nexus Ops... it does what it sets out to do.

Vegas Showdown

Vegas Showdown has been played a few times by WAGS, but only once by me and that was a long time ago. I was looking forward to playing this Princes of Florence/ Amun-Re esque game again. The central auction mechanism obviously lost much of it's tension with only three players, but we did manage to bid other players up on a few occasions. I was well on my way to filling both ends of my play mat in addition to connecting both ends when I realized the game was about to end. A quick calculation revealed that I needed to choose between purchasing a slots room or saving my money and buying alarge room worth 12 VPs. I chose to wait and buy the big one, but I realized right after that I actually had enough to do both.

Guess what,I lost by less than the margin of that error! The slots would have filled my yellow zone (casino?), giving me the 5 points. Oh well, live and . All in all, a fun game. learn.................................................................................................................................................................................

Four Corners of Gaming

This week's theme was "Connect Four"; games which work well with four players. Agent Easy had informed us in advance he would not be attending, so we were prepared. We began the evening somewhat late with Blokus, a game that really doesn't work well with any other number than four. While we were waiting for the inestimable Bharmer to tear himself away from work, we tried the three-player variant of Blokus, which requires three players to take turns placing the fourth colour's shapes.

As seems to be the case in many games we play where there is an "automated" or "group controlled" extra player, the red "bot" won. Shemp came in second, so I suppose technically he won. Bharmer tried to argue that since we were playing his seat until he showed up, he won. I don't think this would stand up in a court of law.

At this point, the suitably four-cornered vegetarian lasagna was ready. We dug in over an actual four player game. Ouch (or Luch, or Hapi, or whatever he's calling himself these days) tried an innovative but ultimately unsuccessful compressed strategy of ignoring the usual dash for the centre area and concentrating instead on placing his own pieces largely in his own corner. Bharmer did quite well for his maiden foray into the game, catching on quite quickly as is usual for him. It came down to a relatively close match between Shemp and I - I squeaked through to win by finding a way to place my pieces which I don't think many people saw until the endgame. I put down all of my pieces. I believe Shemp was second with something like 7 or 8 squares remaining. I usually do middling well in this game, so I was pleased to take the laurel.

We moved on to Vegas Showdown. This game continues to improve with additional plays, at least for me. The bidding is competitive without being overly frustrating or overlong, the mat tile-placement strategy is challenging without being convoluted, and there are definitely several strategies for success. I think that four players is probably a sweet spot for this game because with five you might have a lot more "thwarting" due to being outbid in auctions (there isn't an additional premier tile slot in a five player game). I don't recall playing this with five players yet, though we might have when Jaywowzer came by, so it's hard to say.

I won by a margin of 8 fame (I believe), taking something like 64 total (?), with Shemp giving me a definite run for my money. I often ignore income (revenue) early in the game, concentrating on quick fame grabs. Since the restaurants and lounges often give quick fame boosts from events, building them early on is one definite strategy which helped me out. I often fall behind in revenue, but this game I managed to have a fairly substantial income by the end of the game. Also unusual for me was my achievement of filling both Hotel and Casino sections and connecting the two entrances, something I haven't been able to do in all but one of my sessions with this game. I usually come in second or third in this game lately, so it was satisfying to win it as well. Four points from three-quarter finished red corners and the bonus points from the Famous Chef card probably put me over the top, but I did quite well in all categories.

Due to my incorrect reading of the rules, we played with the renovation rule incorrectly - forcing players to take one renovation action to remove tiles and a second to place previously removed tiles. This affected Shemp and Ouch adversely. We will review this rule again next time we play - I believe the correct reading is "remove 0, 1 or 2 tiles, then place 0, 1 or 2 tiles" with no limitations on replacing tiles which had just been removed.

This game has become one of the long-term favourites in my collection. Definite top 10 material, and quite possibly top 5.

We've taken to using 11.5 gram clay composite chips to substitute for the plastic chips provided with the game. It definitely improves the feel. If I could mount the player mats on more sturdy material, I think the overall impression of the game would improve even more.

My winning streak ended with a horrendous crash as we finished the night with TransEuropa - the version of TransAmerica set in Europe. I am not very good at this game at all - I have consistently played poorly with it, and last night was no exception. I was the "game ender" in both sessions. I think Ouch won the second game and Shemp won the first. I enjoy the simplicity and speed of this game, but I do feel that the random card draw can have a significant affect on one's odds of winning, even over three deals. For instance, in the first game, I was dealt Oslo twice. As far as I can make out, aside from Madrid and Bilbao, it's one of the most inaccesible locations, especially if no one else is dealt Stockholm or Malmo. Bharmer decided to leave a little early so as to catch up on rest, so we were playing with only three, which is not optimal for the game system (or so I gather).

I am getting better with additional plays and I do enjoy the game, but I am not good at this one.

Have we met before? (Vegas showdown, Wildlife)

Kozure purchased two new games recently, so we gathered Wednesday night and gave them a spin... both were strikingly reminiscent of other games we've already played while also being good enough to stand on their own.

Vegas Showdown

The first game was Vegas Showdown, a recent Avalon Hill title which got some pretty good reviews at BGG. The board, bits and title suggest that gambling is involved, but in fact there is none. Players are actually building casinos piece by piece, trying to earn victory points along the way. In practice, the game is essentially a cross between Princes of Florence and Amun-Re (but with a few elements which introduce chaos which is more akin to an american game). From PoF, the game borrows a grided map which players must fill with various "rooms" in a puzzle like fashion and from Amun-Re Vegas Showdown borrows the peculiar auction mechanism (for purchasing the "rooms"). Luckily, where the game falls down on originality it makes up in delivery... the game works and there is enough new in the mechanics that it stands on it's own. The biggest change is a deck of cards which is drawn from every time a "Room" is purchased. Each card will force an event, such as a monetary bonus for each "slots" room in your hotel, etc. Once the effect is applied, a symbol on the card determines which type of "room" will fill the empty space on the auction block. Since the game ends when one of the three types of rooms is exhausted, the result is a variable endgame which added a nice level of tension in our session. Other minor, but well received changes include: a "renovate" action which allows a player to replan their casino at the cost of a turn; a mechanic which reduces the price of items which aren't purchased at their existing price; a progression tree which prevents a player from building a premium room before purchasing the basic version (like the technology tree in Civilization); lastly, the casino layout is divided into three portions (the hotel, middle and restaurant) and points are awarded for certain layouts of rooms.

In our game, Kozure had the winning casino. His lead was padded by an event card which gave him an enormous amount of points for restaurants, but even without it he had enough to win. Shemp was aggressive in trying to connect the hotel portion of his casino to the restaurant, and Luch was the king of slots. JayWowzer and I had very similar casinos, but I made a critical error midway through the game and purchased a "premium" room I couldn't place since I didn't have the require "basic" room. I spent too long trying to get that back on the board and missed out on the income I would have earned if I had been able to place it. Ooops.

Vegas Showdown walks a fine line. It's heavy enough to require a certain amount of forward planning, money management and tactics, but the random events can swing the result in fairly significant ways. Despite my poor showing (tied for last), I enjoyed the game and would look forward to playing it again soon. Oh yeah, I just wanted to mention that the player mats are made of the same flimsy paper Avalon Hill used for the RoboRally mats. It's really too bad, because it really cheapens the overall appearance of the game.

Wildlife

A new Kramer title, which I'd never even heard of, was the second game of the evening. The setting is a small island where a variety of creatures attempt to become the dominant species. Each player plays a specific creature, from crocodile to eagle to human. The island is divided into several types of terrain, and each creature has different levels of ability in each terrain (for example, humans can migrate and expand into plains, but get no actions in deserts). Over the course of the game, players will have several opportunities to improve the lot of their creature type: expand territory, increase their abilties, aquire special powers, etc.

When regions are completely filled with creatures they are scored according to majorities, but every 3rd such scoring a "general scoring" occurs where quite a few other factors are taken into account (such as largest continuous chain of creatures, most advanced creatures, creatures with the most food, etc). As you may have already surmised, this game has more than a passing resemblance to another of Kramer's games: El Grande. However, where El Grande has chaos, Wildlife has bite. In this game, it's perfectly common for another player to come eat your creatures, to steal your card, etc.There is a level of direct competition here which is quite uncommon in german games. The expansion of territory, the conflict and the advancements opportunities for creature skills lend a "civilization" type feel to the game.

I played the humans. I started out in two corners of the board, not really knowing how to play the game. I was quickly threatened by Kozure's mammoths in both my starting areas. This, combined with a hand of cards completely devoid of the types I needed, forced me to play a game of opportunism rather than strategy. I was in last place while Luch's bears, Shemp's crocodiles and, particularly, JayWowzer's eagles were taking commanding leads. Lucky for me, I stumbled into a way to bring me back into contention: I was focussing on securing presences in a variety of territories (a common and generally successful strategy in area control games) while aggressively growing continuous chains of control. When the first "general" scoring occurred, we came to realize that chains were enormous sources of points (the largest chain is worth 10 points, whereas a monopoly in a region is only worth 5). In my case, I had two chains which netted me 1st AND a tie for 2nd longest chain (15 points, I beleive). I was suddenly back in the ballgame. As the game progressed, Shemp and Luch were locked in continuous back and forth struggles in the water, forest and desert zones, hurting both their chances. JayWowzer looked untouchable with a large lead and no obvious weakness on the board. In the end, my continuing success with chains and 2nd or 3rd place points in a variety of regions vaulted me towards the lead! As the final points were tallied, JayWowzer and I ended in a tie...
and so it came to pass that humans and eagles became the dominant species on earth.

Wildlife, like Vegas Showdown before it, turned out to be quite a bit heavier than expected. There are SO MANY options to consider on your turn that analysis paralysis can easily occur. Luckily, downtime is minimized through a clever auction mechanic which forces every player to auction one of their actions every turn (giving each player the opportunity to get actions on other player's turns!). In the end, Wildlife is a meaty game which seems like a cross between Civilization and El Grande... not a bad thing at all. for whatever reason, it didn't stand out for me though. Like Knizia's Tower of Babel, which also blends a number of disparate mechanics into one game, Wildlife is missing the "hook" which somehow distinguishes it from the pack and makes the whole thing click as more than the sum of it's parts (though I think I liked Wildlife more than Tower of Babel, but then again ToB is a much shorter game).