We played part 2 of our game of Civilization.
After I had been nearly wiped off the board by a plague last time, I laid low. Shemp and Bharmer fought a series of battles, and Kozure and Luch did the same. Unable to construct a meaningful trade or army, I did the only thing I could: I bought tech. Over the course of the evening, I bought every technology I could afford. In the end, I had acquired most of the available wonders and and many military technologies.
A couple of things:
1) Kozure rolled a 3 on a critical roll in a critical battle. Luch then rolled a 2.
2) Shemp's rolling absolutely sucked. He lost several battles he should have won.
3) Luch was a money-making engine. He chased Kozure out of the U.S., and Kozure suffered heavy losses during the battle.
As the evening came to a close, I was making a lot of money off of my investments. I also was way ahead on points (approx 35. Luch was next with 20). Unfortunately for me, I have both a large lead and a tiny army. All eyes are now on the Easylanders in Asia, and elimination is the goal. The next session should be bloody.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Civilization: The Rulings
The rules for Sid Meier's Civilization: The Boardgame are notoriously unclear on many topics. I thought I'd spend some time trying to find "official" answers to rules issues, and failing that, provide links or background to unofficial answers. Where neither official nor unofficial answers exist, I wanted to record our own gaming group "ruling". Part of the problem with this is that the old Eagle Games forum on SMC:TB, which contained many official rulings from the designers, went down with the crash of Eagle Games. There is actually a new Eagle Games forum, but it has only a few scant questions. I'm trying to use the Wayback Machine to recover what I can. Otherwise, I'm taking cues from the Civ forums at BGG.
Issues that came up last night:
Q:Are units exhaustible?
A: No. If a player builds more units than are available in the game, find some way of marking or indicating additional units.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/314732
Q: Do you have to pay current era prices for units/improvments/techs from previous eras?
A: No, for units you pay that era's price, but you may only purchase the "best" of that era.
For improvements, you pay the price of the era it dates from.
For techs, you pay half price (and get any associated Wonders, as usual).
You get the "royalty" payment appropriate to the era it comes from.
Question found in archived Wayback Machine forums: "Q: If you go into a new Epoch are you alowed to buy old Units from old epochs? At which price? and how much licence you have to pay?
A: Yes; see p. 24 Purchasing Military Units. Players may always purchase the "best" unit, of each type (e.g. infantry) from each era. The price of the unit depends on the era it is from, as does the fee received by the owner of that technology." Source: - TFK - official Eagle Answers - culled from Wayback Machine.
Also: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/34017
Q: Can a fleet stop another fleet from moving through or unloading units into a space?
A: "Armies loaded on ships are not allowed to disembark if the fleet they are being transported on has been stopped after moving one or more spaces."* SMC:tBG Rules Version 2.0
*This is actually from the Standard (not advanced rules) but is such a standard convention in most wargames of this scale and complexity that it can be assumed that Eagle just forgot to include this rule in the Advanced section.
This actually didn't come up as an issue this time, but may next session, given the number of amphibious landings about to take place. Units which are "stopped" can be land or sea (but land or sea units cannot stop air units).
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/32471
I'm certain there were some other rules issues. Post them here as comments and I'll append them.
OTHER CRITICISM
A guy at BGG took the time to collect and organize criticisms levelled at the game. I figure if we ever bother to play this game again, we agree on a set of revisions that address the issues mentioned in this thread:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/64795
(reproduced here in part for the very lazy, but the link above has in-depth descriptions of the problems mentioned )
1) random exploration markers at start, luck factor
2) bookkeeping / tracking production
3) combat too slow, tedious, random, bad mechanic
4) shared tech tree
5) only one of each happy & production improvement
6) no vps for techs
7) takes too long to play
8) no government
9) runaway leader dynamic
10) resource trading is too complicated / confusing / time consuming
11) city improvements become obsolete
12) city improvements aren't worth their cost
13) hyperexpansion strategy
14) plague too harsh in later eras
15) tech tree problems - ancient->middle too profitable, currency not purchased
Issues that came up last night:
Q:Are units exhaustible?
A: No. If a player builds more units than are available in the game, find some way of marking or indicating additional units.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/314732
Q: Do you have to pay current era prices for units/improvments/techs from previous eras?
A: No, for units you pay that era's price, but you may only purchase the "best" of that era.
For improvements, you pay the price of the era it dates from.
For techs, you pay half price (and get any associated Wonders, as usual).
You get the "royalty" payment appropriate to the era it comes from.
Question found in archived Wayback Machine forums: "Q: If you go into a new Epoch are you alowed to buy old Units from old epochs? At which price? and how much licence you have to pay?
A: Yes; see p. 24 Purchasing Military Units. Players may always purchase the "best" unit, of each type (e.g. infantry) from each era. The price of the unit depends on the era it is from, as does the fee received by the owner of that technology." Source: - TFK - official Eagle Answers - culled from Wayback Machine.
Also: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/34017
Q: Can a fleet stop another fleet from moving through or unloading units into a space?
A: "Armies loaded on ships are not allowed to disembark if the fleet they are being transported on has been stopped after moving one or more spaces."* SMC:tBG Rules Version 2.0
*This is actually from the Standard (not advanced rules) but is such a standard convention in most wargames of this scale and complexity that it can be assumed that Eagle just forgot to include this rule in the Advanced section.
This actually didn't come up as an issue this time, but may next session, given the number of amphibious landings about to take place. Units which are "stopped" can be land or sea (but land or sea units cannot stop air units).
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/32471
I'm certain there were some other rules issues. Post them here as comments and I'll append them.
OTHER CRITICISM
A guy at BGG took the time to collect and organize criticisms levelled at the game. I figure if we ever bother to play this game again, we agree on a set of revisions that address the issues mentioned in this thread:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/64795
(reproduced here in part for the very lazy, but the link above has in-depth descriptions of the problems mentioned )
1) random exploration markers at start, luck factor
2) bookkeeping / tracking production
3) combat too slow, tedious, random, bad mechanic
4) shared tech tree
5) only one of each happy & production improvement
6) no vps for techs
7) takes too long to play
8) no government
9) runaway leader dynamic
10) resource trading is too complicated / confusing / time consuming
11) city improvements become obsolete
12) city improvements aren't worth their cost
13) hyperexpansion strategy
14) plague too harsh in later eras
15) tech tree problems - ancient->middle too profitable, currency not purchased
Thursday, July 17, 2008
As I walk along the valley of death... (Civilization)
So, Shemp is back.
He asked that we play Civilization (the new Sid Meier version, not the game from the 80s). The last time we played it was October of 2004... but of course it took three entire evenings so I suppose it's not a huge surprise we haven't played it more often.
We setup, crossed our fingers that the starting setup wouldn't leave us with the barren world the of last game, and got going. I specifically avoided North America in order to make the game different from the last one. Remembering Luch's mantra "What the @#$@! do I care, I'm in Asia", the Easylanders set up camp there with both my units. Lucky for me, no one else did. There was:
The Bharmerons in Africa
The Shempezuelans in Australia and Europe.
The Luch in North America
The Kozurians in South America
I had a vast array of exploration tokens available to me... things were looking good.
Well, it didn't last. The first token I discovered was a plague, destroying a scout and a soldier. I then managed to explore approximately 15 tiles and only find four resources. Still, my initial draw of Reading/ Writing along with a series of similarly intellectual advancements earned me 3 wonders and a seminal discovery. I was falling behind Luch's money machine (and Kozure wasn't far behind), but things were okay. Shemp, who was having a similarly difficult time finding resources, took advantage of a weakness in Bharmer's territories and took over a key region (or two?) which wound up having a significant impact on his standing in the game.
We entered the medieval age and got about half way through before we had to stop for the day. On my last turn, I explored one of the two remaining tokens and found yet another plague. The rules state that the effect of the tile grows with each passing era, so in the medieval age it kills all units in the original region AND all surrounding regions. Sadly for me, that was where all my units were (save two soldiers and a man-at-arms). Ouch.
When we tallied the points to see how we were doing, I came out significantly ahead on the strength of my wonders, cities and the seminal discovery. With virtually no units left on the board, I expect that to change soon. My saving grace may well be that there is very little compelling reason to come take what's left of my civ, since there was never very much there!
Anyway, Sid Meier's Civilization wasn't one of my favorite games before, and it still isn't. The designers have, in my opinion, been extremely clever about reducing an almost impossibly complex video game into a boardgame. The number of components, while large by boardgame standards, is quite modest considering how much theme is captured. In fact, the growth of civilizations, the technology tree, the little improvements and new choices that pop up as different advancements are discovered and (most surprisingly), the ebb and flow of the importance of things, is all present and the system essentially works.
Even though we're only half-way through our 2nd game, we've still managed to log approximately 12 hours... Part of my problems with the game are that despite attempts at simplification, there is still too much going on. Thankfully, our group is pretty decent about avoiding ridiculous amounts of analysis paralysis, but purchasing decisions/ movement decisions/ technology choice decisions/ trading phase/ etc, leads to a lot of down time. In our four hours of play, I essentially flipped 15 tokens and purchased some units and cards. To be fair, others had a lot more going on so they were more actively trading and maneuvering than I was. Luckily, the experience of going through several ages with infant civilizations is engrossing enough that the time mostly feels like it passes quickly. Also, familiarity with the cards and rules should eliminate much of the downtime and complexity (this session felt much more fluid than our last game, for example... even though the last game was four years ago!). Therefore, although I wish something could have been done to make it better, it's not bad. Considering what it's trying to accomplish, rules elegance and little downtime are pretty hard goals to achieve.
Without a doubt, the biggest problem is the random setup. The difficulty here, though, is that it's a pretty serious dealbreaker. I understand why the designer wanted a discovery aspect. I actually like what it does for the game. But seriously, I think just about anyone could have designed a better balance of starting tiles. As much as it's a bummer to find a patch of desert instead of an oil field, or to find an ancient civilization and get run out by a barbarian, it's okay to have these types of events if they are relatively infrequent... or if drawing them blind isn't a requirement of the game. Problem is, if our two sessions are anything to go by there are a lot of bad tiles and the result of an 8 hour game is largely determined by their initial placement. The plague tile rule that wipes out adjacent regions is absolutely ridiculous for obvious reasons. There HAD to be a better way to handle this. Reading on BGG, it appears that most people who continue to play the game have decided to lay the tiles out face up at the start of the game. I think I'd probably prefer this variant, though it's kind of a shame that the exploration aspect would be lost.
For anyone reading out there, it's worth mentioning that my opinion is not really shared by the group. Most of them really like the game, I think.
Anyway, playing this type of long civilization game has it's appeal. There is a depth of interaction, of integration of theme, of STORY, which can come out of such a game which is simply lost in most short games (RPGs do this better, but who has time for those anymore?!!!). Even though I'm griping, I'm glad we're playing it again.
Let's see if the Easylanders can pull themselves out of this predicament...
He asked that we play Civilization (the new Sid Meier version, not the game from the 80s). The last time we played it was October of 2004... but of course it took three entire evenings so I suppose it's not a huge surprise we haven't played it more often.
We setup, crossed our fingers that the starting setup wouldn't leave us with the barren world the of last game, and got going. I specifically avoided North America in order to make the game different from the last one. Remembering Luch's mantra "What the @#$@! do I care, I'm in Asia", the Easylanders set up camp there with both my units. Lucky for me, no one else did. There was:
The Bharmerons in Africa
The Shempezuelans in Australia and Europe.
The Luch in North America
The Kozurians in South America
I had a vast array of exploration tokens available to me... things were looking good.
Well, it didn't last. The first token I discovered was a plague, destroying a scout and a soldier. I then managed to explore approximately 15 tiles and only find four resources. Still, my initial draw of Reading/ Writing along with a series of similarly intellectual advancements earned me 3 wonders and a seminal discovery. I was falling behind Luch's money machine (and Kozure wasn't far behind), but things were okay. Shemp, who was having a similarly difficult time finding resources, took advantage of a weakness in Bharmer's territories and took over a key region (or two?) which wound up having a significant impact on his standing in the game.
We entered the medieval age and got about half way through before we had to stop for the day. On my last turn, I explored one of the two remaining tokens and found yet another plague. The rules state that the effect of the tile grows with each passing era, so in the medieval age it kills all units in the original region AND all surrounding regions. Sadly for me, that was where all my units were (save two soldiers and a man-at-arms). Ouch.
When we tallied the points to see how we were doing, I came out significantly ahead on the strength of my wonders, cities and the seminal discovery. With virtually no units left on the board, I expect that to change soon. My saving grace may well be that there is very little compelling reason to come take what's left of my civ, since there was never very much there!
Anyway, Sid Meier's Civilization wasn't one of my favorite games before, and it still isn't. The designers have, in my opinion, been extremely clever about reducing an almost impossibly complex video game into a boardgame. The number of components, while large by boardgame standards, is quite modest considering how much theme is captured. In fact, the growth of civilizations, the technology tree, the little improvements and new choices that pop up as different advancements are discovered and (most surprisingly), the ebb and flow of the importance of things, is all present and the system essentially works.
Even though we're only half-way through our 2nd game, we've still managed to log approximately 12 hours... Part of my problems with the game are that despite attempts at simplification, there is still too much going on. Thankfully, our group is pretty decent about avoiding ridiculous amounts of analysis paralysis, but purchasing decisions/ movement decisions/ technology choice decisions/ trading phase/ etc, leads to a lot of down time. In our four hours of play, I essentially flipped 15 tokens and purchased some units and cards. To be fair, others had a lot more going on so they were more actively trading and maneuvering than I was. Luckily, the experience of going through several ages with infant civilizations is engrossing enough that the time mostly feels like it passes quickly. Also, familiarity with the cards and rules should eliminate much of the downtime and complexity (this session felt much more fluid than our last game, for example... even though the last game was four years ago!). Therefore, although I wish something could have been done to make it better, it's not bad. Considering what it's trying to accomplish, rules elegance and little downtime are pretty hard goals to achieve.
Without a doubt, the biggest problem is the random setup. The difficulty here, though, is that it's a pretty serious dealbreaker. I understand why the designer wanted a discovery aspect. I actually like what it does for the game. But seriously, I think just about anyone could have designed a better balance of starting tiles. As much as it's a bummer to find a patch of desert instead of an oil field, or to find an ancient civilization and get run out by a barbarian, it's okay to have these types of events if they are relatively infrequent... or if drawing them blind isn't a requirement of the game. Problem is, if our two sessions are anything to go by there are a lot of bad tiles and the result of an 8 hour game is largely determined by their initial placement. The plague tile rule that wipes out adjacent regions is absolutely ridiculous for obvious reasons. There HAD to be a better way to handle this. Reading on BGG, it appears that most people who continue to play the game have decided to lay the tiles out face up at the start of the game. I think I'd probably prefer this variant, though it's kind of a shame that the exploration aspect would be lost.
For anyone reading out there, it's worth mentioning that my opinion is not really shared by the group. Most of them really like the game, I think.
Anyway, playing this type of long civilization game has it's appeal. There is a depth of interaction, of integration of theme, of STORY, which can come out of such a game which is simply lost in most short games (RPGs do this better, but who has time for those anymore?!!!). Even though I'm griping, I'm glad we're playing it again.
Let's see if the Easylanders can pull themselves out of this predicament...
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Railroaded (Railroad Tycoon: Rails of Europe, Hollywood Blockbuster)
We finally brought out the Railroad Tycoon expansion "Rails of Europe" a second time. Next, we played the carry-over game from last week... Hollywood Blockbuster. We were five players: Luch, Kozure, Bharmer, JayWowzer and myself.
Rails of Europe
With five players, Rails of Europe is a pretty crowded place. I drew the baron which wants a connection from Vienna to St. Petersburg, and get what was right there in the initial deal of railway operation cards? The Vienna Hotel. I bid quite high for first place and grabbed it, though a really lucrative collection of yellow cubes centered around Rome would have been the better move. JayWowzer grabbed that and milked it nearly to the end of the game! Meanwhile, Luch started in the North-east, Bharmer was set up in the West and Kozure was Center-North. By the end of the game, the railroad spaghetti was quite a sight. JayWowzer built a particularly convoluted track within the impossibly congested region around Paris. Anyway, Bharmer made the earliest major connection and made the most of his superior cash flow throughout the game. He finished in first place AND had the least shares, so he won by a fair margin. I came in a close second, until my 18 shares were taken into account. Still second, but no longer that close (I believe I was tied with JayWowzer).
Hollywood Blockbuster
With five players, Hollywood Blockbuster is a very different game. Movies are NOT easy to make. Whereas I completed 5 movies last game, I only managed 2 this time (though the others completed 3).
Last game, I felt that the way money moved around was a little strange. With 5, it is a lot strange. How do you deal with the fact that almost every auction goes for 8-10 contracts, but the person with that money moves around the table as the funds change hands. Make a big purchase, and it can take quite a while before you can afford to make your next one (with 5 players, and bidding typically going to 8, each person gets 2 contracts back per round). I found it hard to figure out when to go for a particular lot, because I could almost always use whatever was offered. So how do you decide? Do you just bid once you've regenerated your money? I don't know... it just felt strange and kind of pointless.
Anyway, my intuition was clearly in the toilet. I kept bidding way too high for lots which had one or two tiles I felt I needed (usually against Luch. Never bid against Luch). Then, I'd sit and watch as I rebuilt my funds to the magic 8 contracts. Also, I tried way too hard to get a movie made that was worse than Luch's Keanu Reeves vehicle. I spent lots of money trying to ultimately make 0 points (Luch outbid me on my one opportunity to finish the movie and get the award. It was still unfinished at the end of the game). JayWowzer killed us with a number of successful movies (including the multiple best movie award winning Forrest Gump directed by Woody Allen).
Anyway, I still thought it was okay, but I liked it less than I did with three (though that felt like too few). I'm guessing, therefore, that the sweetspot will be with 4.
Comparisons to RA feel even less valid after this second play. For one, RA suffers with more players because the lot changes too much between each player's actions. In HB, the board is set ahead of time and all players do is bid on them in sequence. It's all about preplanning rather than push your luck.
Rails of Europe
With five players, Rails of Europe is a pretty crowded place. I drew the baron which wants a connection from Vienna to St. Petersburg, and get what was right there in the initial deal of railway operation cards? The Vienna Hotel. I bid quite high for first place and grabbed it, though a really lucrative collection of yellow cubes centered around Rome would have been the better move. JayWowzer grabbed that and milked it nearly to the end of the game! Meanwhile, Luch started in the North-east, Bharmer was set up in the West and Kozure was Center-North. By the end of the game, the railroad spaghetti was quite a sight. JayWowzer built a particularly convoluted track within the impossibly congested region around Paris. Anyway, Bharmer made the earliest major connection and made the most of his superior cash flow throughout the game. He finished in first place AND had the least shares, so he won by a fair margin. I came in a close second, until my 18 shares were taken into account. Still second, but no longer that close (I believe I was tied with JayWowzer).
Hollywood Blockbuster
With five players, Hollywood Blockbuster is a very different game. Movies are NOT easy to make. Whereas I completed 5 movies last game, I only managed 2 this time (though the others completed 3).
Last game, I felt that the way money moved around was a little strange. With 5, it is a lot strange. How do you deal with the fact that almost every auction goes for 8-10 contracts, but the person with that money moves around the table as the funds change hands. Make a big purchase, and it can take quite a while before you can afford to make your next one (with 5 players, and bidding typically going to 8, each person gets 2 contracts back per round). I found it hard to figure out when to go for a particular lot, because I could almost always use whatever was offered. So how do you decide? Do you just bid once you've regenerated your money? I don't know... it just felt strange and kind of pointless.
Anyway, my intuition was clearly in the toilet. I kept bidding way too high for lots which had one or two tiles I felt I needed (usually against Luch. Never bid against Luch). Then, I'd sit and watch as I rebuilt my funds to the magic 8 contracts. Also, I tried way too hard to get a movie made that was worse than Luch's Keanu Reeves vehicle. I spent lots of money trying to ultimately make 0 points (Luch outbid me on my one opportunity to finish the movie and get the award. It was still unfinished at the end of the game). JayWowzer killed us with a number of successful movies (including the multiple best movie award winning Forrest Gump directed by Woody Allen).
Anyway, I still thought it was okay, but I liked it less than I did with three (though that felt like too few). I'm guessing, therefore, that the sweetspot will be with 4.
Comparisons to RA feel even less valid after this second play. For one, RA suffers with more players because the lot changes too much between each player's actions. In HB, the board is set ahead of time and all players do is bid on them in sequence. It's all about preplanning rather than push your luck.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Thoughts on my game collection
It's hard to believe, but we've been holding weekly WAGS meetings since January of 2004 (and writing this blog since May of the same year). In that time, I've watched my game collection grow rather rapidly, to the point that it now equals Kozure's (who started out being the guy with all the games). BGG says I own 105, but that's not entirely accurate... many of those are expansions, kids games that don't really count, or generic games (Clue, Risk, Monopoly) that are in my closet, but I don't consider part of my modern games collection. Taking those out of consideration, the collection is about 60 games.
Anyway, I'm on vacation and I'm a geek and I have a few minutes to myself at the moment so I'm going to categorize my games for fun.
I'll be splitting these up into categories that are pretty arbitrary but make sense to me.
Wargames
Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage
Lock n' Load: Band of Heroes
Memoir '44
Napoleon
Rommel in the Desert
Wilderness War
*Notes: I'm quite happy with my wargame collection. There's an accessible one for casual players (Memoir), a couple of block games (Napoleon and Rommel), a couple of card driven wargames (Hannibal and WW) and a standard hex and counter game (L n' L). Considering I don't get to play these often, I don't think I'll be adding to this list anytime soon. However, through Kozure I do occasionally get to try a different system, which is always interesting. Currently, my favorite is Rommel, with Wilderness War in second place. I haven't yet finished a game of Hannibal, but although I like it I'm afraid that the game is a bit static.
Abstracts:
Dvonn
Ingenious
Blokus
*Notes: I'm not particularly drawn to abstracts. For example, my love of all things game has generally skipped over the likes of Chess and backgammon. Still, I have a few that I enjoy well enough. Dvonn is my favorite to play, but Ingenious is the most flexible for number of players (Blokus only plays well with four, imho). These are so simple to play, they are pretty popular... particularly Blokus.
Party Games:
Apples to Apples
Bang!
Diamant
Jungle Speed
Pitchcar Mini
Taboo
Things...
Time's Up
*Notes: I've included in this category any game where the experience of getting together with a larger group and just having silly fun is the primary objective (in other words, the is not strategery here). Of these, Jungle Speed is my hands down favorite (it's the only one I'd ever bring to a games night), but Things, Taboo and Time's Up are all great fun with the right crowd. Apples to Apples is a lot like Blokus for me... I like it because it's pleasant enough and easy to teach. Diamant and Pitchcar mini are also very good, but I like them less than the others.
Games that play well with 1:
Lord of the Rings
Pandemic
Agricola (not here yet, but pre-ordered specifically because it plays solo)
*Notes: Lord of the Rings is one of my favorite games. I enjoy playing it solo, and I've had good success with family and friends as well. Pandemic also seems like it would play well but I haven't tried a full game because I have a nagging feeling that once we get too good at the game it will get boring, so I'm reserving my plays for the group.
Games that play well with 2
Light:
Carcassonne
Citadels
HeroScape*
Star Wars: Epic Duels
Medium/ casual:
Blue Moon City
Carcassonne: The City
Last Night on Earth
Lord of the Rings
Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation*
Mr. Jack*
Race for the Galaxy
Glory to Rome
Through the Desert
Ticket to Ride (w/Switzerland map)
Heavy/ strategy:
Duel of Ages*
Dungeon Twister*
Entdecker
Fury of Dracula
Goa
Tikal
Tigris and Euphrates
*Notes: The asterisks indicate those that are primarily conceived as 2 player games.
Lots of my games work well with two players, but I rarely actually play 2 player games. My wife doesn't game, and although I occasionally hook up with Kozure outside of WAGS, it's usually to play wargames. When I do play, it's usually when an out of town friend is around or a member of the extended family is passing through. There are a lot of great games on the list. Given the choice, I'd likely pick Dungeon Twister if the other player is receptive to that sort of game. Otherwise, Carcassonne, Mr. Jack or LOTR: Confrontation are likely picks, although Nexus Ops will often come out with a certain crowd. TtR: Switzerland hasn't been played very often, but when I did I really liked how cut-throat it was.
Games that play well with 3:
Light:
Citadels
Carcassonne
Ticket to Ride
Medium/ casual:
Blue Moon City
Carcassonne (with expansions)
Carcassonne: The City
China
Hollywood Blockbuster
Last Night on Earth
Lord of the Rings
Ra
Race for the Galaxy
Settlers of Catan
Through the Desert
Nexus Ops
Glory to Rome
Heavy/ Strategy:
Antike
Entdecker
Fury of Dracula
Goa
In the Year of the Dragon
Perikles
Puerto Rico
Tikal
*Notes: My favorite 3 player game is RA. Still, for a category which used to be a real problem to fill there's a lot of good games in there. Blue Moon City, Entdecker, Settlers of Catan and Tikal are all 4 player games which I feel plays best with just 3. It seems that this category really favours the medium/ casual games category, though there are definitely some good heavy ones in here (Perikles, In the Year of the Dragon, Tikal and Goa, for example)
Games that play well with 4:
Light:
Star Wars: Epic Duels
Ticket to Ride
For Sale
Formula: Motor Racing
Medium/ casual:
Blue Moon City
Conspiracy
Last Night on Earth
Mission: Red Planet
Lord of the Rings
Ra
Race for the Galaxy
Through the Desert
Nexus Ops
Formula De
RoboRally
Glory to Rome
Hollywood Blockbuster
Heavy/ Strategy:
Antike
Duel of Ages
Entdecker
Goa
In the Year of the Dragon
Perikles
Puerto Rico
Princes of Florence
El Grande
Railroad Tycoon
Tigris & Euphrates
Traders of Genoa
Conquest of the Empire
*Notes: No shortage of good games here. 4 players is by far the easiest number to accommodate. It's pretty tough picking the best games in this category because there are so many great games here and the preference would likely depend on the situation. Conspiracy is probably the only game on the list that I would really prefer only playing with 4 (though I definitely prefer Tigris and Euphrates with 4 than with 2, and I'm starting to dislike playing it with 3). The game I most want to play at WAGS with 4 is Taj Mahal, but that isn't in my collection.
Games that play well with 5:
Light:
For Sale
Formula: Motor Racing
Ticket to Ride
Transamerica
Medium/ casual:
Hollywood Blockbuster
Lord of the Rings
Mission: Red Planet
Roborally
Through the Desert
Formula De
Last Night on Earth
Heavy/ strategy:
Antike
Beowulf: The Legend
Conquest of the Empire
El Grande
In the Year of the Dragon
Princes of Florence
Puerto Rico
Railroad Tycoon
Traders of Genoa
*Notes: Unsurprisingly, the collection starts to thin out at this point. Some of my absolute favorites, such as El Grande and Princes of Florence, play best with 5 so it's always great when we get a chance to play at this number. Beowulf, Formula De and Transamerica really only play well at 5 (or more, in the case of Transamerica and Formula De)
Games that play well with 6:
Light:
Citadels
For Sale
Formula: Motor Racing
Transamerica
Star Wars: Epic Duels
Medium/ casual:
Roborally
Formula De
Heavy:
Antike
Lord of the Rings (with Sauron Expansion)
Railroad Tycoon
*Notes: Very few games play with 6. Notable in this category is the reappearance of Citadels (I dislike Citadels for 4-5 players, due to the unfortunate effects the role selection mechanism has at that number. The player to the right of the king is kind of screwed). Also, Lord of the Rings moves from the medium category to the heavy category due to the inclusion of the Sauron expansion... a relatively brutal and taxing experience. Luckily, even though many games are dropping off the list, games like Transamerica, Roborally and Formula De are coming into their own.
Games that play well with 7,8:
Formula De
Citadels
So that's it. Some games, like Goa, In the Year of the Dragon and Puerto Rico, scale well across most (if not all) of their published number of players. LOTR is the champion of versatility by playing well from 1-6 players. Others, like El Grande or Princes of Florence, only play well within very narrow parameters. Some games, like Fury of Dracula, Duel of Ages, Dungeon Twister and most of my wargames I rarely get to play due to the time investment and/or specific type of players required, but I like them enough to keep anyway. Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, Nexus Ops and Blue Moon City have been the most frequently played games amongst my friends and family, while the Alea line (Ra, Princes of Florence, Traders of Genoa, Puerto Rico), Railroad Tycoon, Carcassonne and El Grande have seen the most longevity in our WAGS sessions. I get the sense that either Race for the Galaxy or Glory to Rome will stand the test of time and continue to get play years from now, but I can't yet decide which one.
Oh, and I'm still looking for a really good civ/war game that plays in a reasonable amount of time. Hopefully, someday I'll find one.
Anyway, I'm on vacation and I'm a geek and I have a few minutes to myself at the moment so I'm going to categorize my games for fun.
I'll be splitting these up into categories that are pretty arbitrary but make sense to me.
Wargames
Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage
Lock n' Load: Band of Heroes
Memoir '44
Napoleon
Rommel in the Desert
Wilderness War
*Notes: I'm quite happy with my wargame collection. There's an accessible one for casual players (Memoir), a couple of block games (Napoleon and Rommel), a couple of card driven wargames (Hannibal and WW) and a standard hex and counter game (L n' L). Considering I don't get to play these often, I don't think I'll be adding to this list anytime soon. However, through Kozure I do occasionally get to try a different system, which is always interesting. Currently, my favorite is Rommel, with Wilderness War in second place. I haven't yet finished a game of Hannibal, but although I like it I'm afraid that the game is a bit static.
Abstracts:
Dvonn
Ingenious
Blokus
*Notes: I'm not particularly drawn to abstracts. For example, my love of all things game has generally skipped over the likes of Chess and backgammon. Still, I have a few that I enjoy well enough. Dvonn is my favorite to play, but Ingenious is the most flexible for number of players (Blokus only plays well with four, imho). These are so simple to play, they are pretty popular... particularly Blokus.
Party Games:
Apples to Apples
Bang!
Diamant
Jungle Speed
Pitchcar Mini
Taboo
Things...
Time's Up
*Notes: I've included in this category any game where the experience of getting together with a larger group and just having silly fun is the primary objective (in other words, the is not strategery here). Of these, Jungle Speed is my hands down favorite (it's the only one I'd ever bring to a games night), but Things, Taboo and Time's Up are all great fun with the right crowd. Apples to Apples is a lot like Blokus for me... I like it because it's pleasant enough and easy to teach. Diamant and Pitchcar mini are also very good, but I like them less than the others.
Games that play well with 1:
Lord of the Rings
Pandemic
Agricola (not here yet, but pre-ordered specifically because it plays solo)
*Notes: Lord of the Rings is one of my favorite games. I enjoy playing it solo, and I've had good success with family and friends as well. Pandemic also seems like it would play well but I haven't tried a full game because I have a nagging feeling that once we get too good at the game it will get boring, so I'm reserving my plays for the group.
Games that play well with 2
Light:
Carcassonne
Citadels
HeroScape*
Star Wars: Epic Duels
Medium/ casual:
Blue Moon City
Carcassonne: The City
Last Night on Earth
Lord of the Rings
Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation*
Mr. Jack*
Race for the Galaxy
Glory to Rome
Through the Desert
Ticket to Ride (w/Switzerland map)
Heavy/ strategy:
Duel of Ages*
Dungeon Twister*
Entdecker
Fury of Dracula
Goa
Tikal
Tigris and Euphrates
*Notes: The asterisks indicate those that are primarily conceived as 2 player games.
Lots of my games work well with two players, but I rarely actually play 2 player games. My wife doesn't game, and although I occasionally hook up with Kozure outside of WAGS, it's usually to play wargames. When I do play, it's usually when an out of town friend is around or a member of the extended family is passing through. There are a lot of great games on the list. Given the choice, I'd likely pick Dungeon Twister if the other player is receptive to that sort of game. Otherwise, Carcassonne, Mr. Jack or LOTR: Confrontation are likely picks, although Nexus Ops will often come out with a certain crowd. TtR: Switzerland hasn't been played very often, but when I did I really liked how cut-throat it was.
Games that play well with 3:
Light:
Citadels
Carcassonne
Ticket to Ride
Medium/ casual:
Blue Moon City
Carcassonne (with expansions)
Carcassonne: The City
China
Hollywood Blockbuster
Last Night on Earth
Lord of the Rings
Ra
Race for the Galaxy
Settlers of Catan
Through the Desert
Nexus Ops
Glory to Rome
Heavy/ Strategy:
Antike
Entdecker
Fury of Dracula
Goa
In the Year of the Dragon
Perikles
Puerto Rico
Tikal
*Notes: My favorite 3 player game is RA. Still, for a category which used to be a real problem to fill there's a lot of good games in there. Blue Moon City, Entdecker, Settlers of Catan and Tikal are all 4 player games which I feel plays best with just 3. It seems that this category really favours the medium/ casual games category, though there are definitely some good heavy ones in here (Perikles, In the Year of the Dragon, Tikal and Goa, for example)
Games that play well with 4:
Light:
Star Wars: Epic Duels
Ticket to Ride
For Sale
Formula: Motor Racing
Medium/ casual:
Blue Moon City
Conspiracy
Last Night on Earth
Mission: Red Planet
Lord of the Rings
Ra
Race for the Galaxy
Through the Desert
Nexus Ops
Formula De
RoboRally
Glory to Rome
Hollywood Blockbuster
Heavy/ Strategy:
Antike
Duel of Ages
Entdecker
Goa
In the Year of the Dragon
Perikles
Puerto Rico
Princes of Florence
El Grande
Railroad Tycoon
Tigris & Euphrates
Traders of Genoa
Conquest of the Empire
*Notes: No shortage of good games here. 4 players is by far the easiest number to accommodate. It's pretty tough picking the best games in this category because there are so many great games here and the preference would likely depend on the situation. Conspiracy is probably the only game on the list that I would really prefer only playing with 4 (though I definitely prefer Tigris and Euphrates with 4 than with 2, and I'm starting to dislike playing it with 3). The game I most want to play at WAGS with 4 is Taj Mahal, but that isn't in my collection.
Games that play well with 5:
Light:
For Sale
Formula: Motor Racing
Ticket to Ride
Transamerica
Medium/ casual:
Hollywood Blockbuster
Lord of the Rings
Mission: Red Planet
Roborally
Through the Desert
Formula De
Last Night on Earth
Heavy/ strategy:
Antike
Beowulf: The Legend
Conquest of the Empire
El Grande
In the Year of the Dragon
Princes of Florence
Puerto Rico
Railroad Tycoon
Traders of Genoa
*Notes: Unsurprisingly, the collection starts to thin out at this point. Some of my absolute favorites, such as El Grande and Princes of Florence, play best with 5 so it's always great when we get a chance to play at this number. Beowulf, Formula De and Transamerica really only play well at 5 (or more, in the case of Transamerica and Formula De)
Games that play well with 6:
Light:
Citadels
For Sale
Formula: Motor Racing
Transamerica
Star Wars: Epic Duels
Medium/ casual:
Roborally
Formula De
Heavy:
Antike
Lord of the Rings (with Sauron Expansion)
Railroad Tycoon
*Notes: Very few games play with 6. Notable in this category is the reappearance of Citadels (I dislike Citadels for 4-5 players, due to the unfortunate effects the role selection mechanism has at that number. The player to the right of the king is kind of screwed). Also, Lord of the Rings moves from the medium category to the heavy category due to the inclusion of the Sauron expansion... a relatively brutal and taxing experience. Luckily, even though many games are dropping off the list, games like Transamerica, Roborally and Formula De are coming into their own.
Games that play well with 7,8:
Formula De
Citadels
So that's it. Some games, like Goa, In the Year of the Dragon and Puerto Rico, scale well across most (if not all) of their published number of players. LOTR is the champion of versatility by playing well from 1-6 players. Others, like El Grande or Princes of Florence, only play well within very narrow parameters. Some games, like Fury of Dracula, Duel of Ages, Dungeon Twister and most of my wargames I rarely get to play due to the time investment and/or specific type of players required, but I like them enough to keep anyway. Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, Nexus Ops and Blue Moon City have been the most frequently played games amongst my friends and family, while the Alea line (Ra, Princes of Florence, Traders of Genoa, Puerto Rico), Railroad Tycoon, Carcassonne and El Grande have seen the most longevity in our WAGS sessions. I get the sense that either Race for the Galaxy or Glory to Rome will stand the test of time and continue to get play years from now, but I can't yet decide which one.
Oh, and I'm still looking for a really good civ/war game that plays in a reasonable amount of time. Hopefully, someday I'll find one.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Whoa. Dude. The idol is... like... made of g o l d. (Puerto Rico, Glory to Rome x2, China, Hollywood Blockbuster)
It was me, Luch and Bharmer tonight.
I know games generally go quicker with fewer players, but I was surprised how many games we got in our short 4 hour window.
Puerto Rico
The #1 game on BGG continues to pop up once in a while. I started with corn, decided I’d go for coffee, then got stuck with tobacco. I then decided to buy a factory and collect sugar and indigo for the set! I didn’t gain much from shipping, but the money I was making from the factory allowed me to buy two large buildings and win the game. Bharmer did manage quite a bit of shipping, but didn’t get as many points from buildings.
Glory to Rome
We were able to play two more hands of Glory to Rome, and I’m happy to say that it’s turning out to be a great game. One thing we all just came to understand is that the game can end very abruptly when a powerful combo of buildings gets built. The thing is, since GtR features an abnormally high number of such powerful buildings and combos, you really have to watch what’s going on.
In our first game, we were once again just sort of building buildings to see what they do. I came across a building called the scriptorium which allowed me to complete any building I wanted with just a single marble. That’s very powerful. In no time, I completed a series of random buildings I had started, one of which was the colosseum… a building that ends the game. Since no one had used their vaults, I knew I had won.
It all happened pretty abruptly.
Bharmer mentioned he didn’t feel very satisfied by the game, so he chose to have us play it again.
This time, things went rather differently. Luch built a building (the name escapes me), that allows the player to use the powers of his unbuilt buildings as though they were completed. He then started a virtual city of foundations and became so flush with special abilities it was probably impossible to keep track of them. I was keeping up with the joneses on the building front, but simultaneously stashing material in the vault. Near the end, Luch started completing buildings but most of his potential went unrealized, as the last in town site was chosen and the game ended. Since I was the only player to have played in the vault, I received a couple of bonus chits, and those six points gave me the win (though it was otherwise very close).
Now that we’ve played three times, I can definitely say that I really enjoy it. The games play out very differently each time due to the huge impacts the cards can have. The end can show up out of nowhere, and games can vary wildly in length depending on what triggers the end of the game, but it’s a card game so I don’t put it in the same context as most boardgames. I’m enjoying having to make the most of the cards I’ve got, and seeing how all the powers work together.
I think as a group we tend to undervalue the vault, but I’m pretty confident there’s a successfully strategy that counters that method as well.
China
What can be said about playing China? Luch often wins, and this week was no exception. He simply knows how to get those advisor connections going. He was ahead by the equivalent of a third of our score.
Hollywood Blockbuster
Amazingly, we still had time for another game. I pulled out my latest math trade acquisition, Hollywood Blockbuster, and we gave it a whirl.
I had read it was similar to RA. That actually scared me a little, because if there is something I dislike, it’s when game A resembles game B too much in my collection. Those fears were unfounded, as HB feels like a very different game.
Over four rounds, players try to auction sets of actors, special effects, directors, music and cinematography of various quality to try to complete the movies they have on deck. A particular movie might require a main actor, a cinematographer, and two composers. Once a player has won enough auctions to have a chip placed on each of these spaces, he/she adds up all the stars on the various items they’ve collected and the movie is scored.
Various awards are given for first film in a given genre, best film of the quarter, best direction, etc. There is even an award for worst movie, so there is actually some benefit in trying to make a really bad movie. The whole process is quite straightforward and I think the theme would actually appeal to a lot of people that aren’t normally gamers. (I’ll let you know after I try to get my sister to play). Although the continuous auctions create a definite parallel with RA, the simpler collection conditions and the lack of Sun Tile constraint and disasters makes this feel much more approachable (though RA is the better gamer’s game). The most serious flaw HB has is a result of patent law... Sadly, all the movies and actors in the game are “satires” or “caricatures” of real world movies and actors. Although the drawings themselves are pretty good for the most part, the “funny” names of famous people and movies are kind of lame. Personally, I prefer to just refer to everybody by their real names.
Anyway, over the course of the game I made Forrest Gump directed by Tarantino and staring Tom Cruise which won Best Picture. Then, Raiders of the Lost Ark staring Keanu Reeves managed to come in as the worst movie ever. Imagine that.
I liked it. Redistributing all the money you paid to win an auction to other players is a strange thing, but it seems to work. All in all, I’m happy with the game.
I know games generally go quicker with fewer players, but I was surprised how many games we got in our short 4 hour window.
Puerto Rico
The #1 game on BGG continues to pop up once in a while. I started with corn, decided I’d go for coffee, then got stuck with tobacco. I then decided to buy a factory and collect sugar and indigo for the set! I didn’t gain much from shipping, but the money I was making from the factory allowed me to buy two large buildings and win the game. Bharmer did manage quite a bit of shipping, but didn’t get as many points from buildings.
Glory to Rome
We were able to play two more hands of Glory to Rome, and I’m happy to say that it’s turning out to be a great game. One thing we all just came to understand is that the game can end very abruptly when a powerful combo of buildings gets built. The thing is, since GtR features an abnormally high number of such powerful buildings and combos, you really have to watch what’s going on.
In our first game, we were once again just sort of building buildings to see what they do. I came across a building called the scriptorium which allowed me to complete any building I wanted with just a single marble. That’s very powerful. In no time, I completed a series of random buildings I had started, one of which was the colosseum… a building that ends the game. Since no one had used their vaults, I knew I had won.
It all happened pretty abruptly.
Bharmer mentioned he didn’t feel very satisfied by the game, so he chose to have us play it again.
This time, things went rather differently. Luch built a building (the name escapes me), that allows the player to use the powers of his unbuilt buildings as though they were completed. He then started a virtual city of foundations and became so flush with special abilities it was probably impossible to keep track of them. I was keeping up with the joneses on the building front, but simultaneously stashing material in the vault. Near the end, Luch started completing buildings but most of his potential went unrealized, as the last in town site was chosen and the game ended. Since I was the only player to have played in the vault, I received a couple of bonus chits, and those six points gave me the win (though it was otherwise very close).
Now that we’ve played three times, I can definitely say that I really enjoy it. The games play out very differently each time due to the huge impacts the cards can have. The end can show up out of nowhere, and games can vary wildly in length depending on what triggers the end of the game, but it’s a card game so I don’t put it in the same context as most boardgames. I’m enjoying having to make the most of the cards I’ve got, and seeing how all the powers work together.
I think as a group we tend to undervalue the vault, but I’m pretty confident there’s a successfully strategy that counters that method as well.
China
What can be said about playing China? Luch often wins, and this week was no exception. He simply knows how to get those advisor connections going. He was ahead by the equivalent of a third of our score.
Hollywood Blockbuster
Amazingly, we still had time for another game. I pulled out my latest math trade acquisition, Hollywood Blockbuster, and we gave it a whirl.
I had read it was similar to RA. That actually scared me a little, because if there is something I dislike, it’s when game A resembles game B too much in my collection. Those fears were unfounded, as HB feels like a very different game.
Over four rounds, players try to auction sets of actors, special effects, directors, music and cinematography of various quality to try to complete the movies they have on deck. A particular movie might require a main actor, a cinematographer, and two composers. Once a player has won enough auctions to have a chip placed on each of these spaces, he/she adds up all the stars on the various items they’ve collected and the movie is scored.
Various awards are given for first film in a given genre, best film of the quarter, best direction, etc. There is even an award for worst movie, so there is actually some benefit in trying to make a really bad movie. The whole process is quite straightforward and I think the theme would actually appeal to a lot of people that aren’t normally gamers. (I’ll let you know after I try to get my sister to play). Although the continuous auctions create a definite parallel with RA, the simpler collection conditions and the lack of Sun Tile constraint and disasters makes this feel much more approachable (though RA is the better gamer’s game). The most serious flaw HB has is a result of patent law... Sadly, all the movies and actors in the game are “satires” or “caricatures” of real world movies and actors. Although the drawings themselves are pretty good for the most part, the “funny” names of famous people and movies are kind of lame. Personally, I prefer to just refer to everybody by their real names.
Anyway, over the course of the game I made Forrest Gump directed by Tarantino and staring Tom Cruise which won Best Picture. Then, Raiders of the Lost Ark staring Keanu Reeves managed to come in as the worst movie ever. Imagine that.
I liked it. Redistributing all the money you paid to win an auction to other players is a strange thing, but it seems to work. All in all, I’m happy with the game.
Labels:
China,
Glory to Rome,
Hollywood Blockbuster,
Puerto Rico
Thursday, June 26, 2008
The men who saved, and then sold, the world (Fairy Tale, Pandemic, Traders of Genoa)
Remember Fairy Tale? We played it almost exactly three years ago when Jaywowzer brought over his copy. I felt it was a good game, but nothing spectacular. I recently received it as part of my last math trade, so I figured I'd give it a whirl. Guess what? Nothing's changed. It's decent.
Next, we played Pandemic. Reinforcing my theory that the luck of the draw is a rather overwhelming factor in the game, we followed a two game losing streak (6 if you count Kozure and Tili's games at Tabscon) with a rather easy win tonight. It didn't start off well, as Bharmer's first player card was once again an epidemic card. Lucky for us, however, we had very little difficulty getting sets together for cures, and the pandemics never really got into chain reaction territory. It was great finally registering a win, though, so I'm not complaining. Lots of fun.
We finished the evening with a game of the venerable Traders of Genoa. Predictably, I went with an ownership marker strategy. I managed to get one on the cathedral (ownership markers), the post office (messages) and all four goods buildings. They paid off.
Thankfully, too, because other than delivering messages I wasn't accomplishing too much. As the game wore on, I felt that I was quickly losing the lead my marker business had given me. I decided to use a "start anywhere" marker to start in the middle of the board and therefore shorten the game by a round. I did win, but it was very close (795, 770, 720, 695).
Luch has to win a prize for most complex turns. He managed to play the entire tower on a couple of occasions by playing a flurry of additional action chips.
Ironically, Glory to Rome was the game we had all picked as the carry-over game from last week. It didn't make it on the table this week, but maybe next week?
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Well. that's better. (Glory to Rome, Princes of Florence, Pandemic)
After last week's embarrassing session of Princes of Florence, we felt we needed to redeem ourselves by playing again correctly. However, I had just picked up Glory to Rome and Pandemic, so I wanted to play those as well. From what I had read, trying to learn Glory to Rome late at night can make your head explode... so we started with that instead.
Glory to Rome
San Juan should be pretty flattered. Race for the Galaxy and Glory to Rome are both very close cousins to the card game implementation of Puerto Rico. Whereas Race is pretty much a more complicated version of San Juan, Glory to Rome uses a similar basic system but strays a bit further in terms of gameplay.
Let's get some first impressions out of the way: the art on the cards is pretty bad. Really pretty bad. It's a kind of cartoony art that seems like something out of Munchkin. It's odd, too, because the actual layout of the cards is quite thoughtful, so someone was clearly thinking about presentation. Part of the problem with the art is that it gives the impression the game is going to be funny or light. It is isn't either. The only argument I can think of in favour of the comic style is the fact that the game features real, live, direct player interaction (sometimes referred to as "screwage"), which is often not welcome in the more serious euros.
Like San Juan, the basic system involves choosing from various roles in an effort to build various buildings, each of which confers special abilities to the player once built. Most VPs wins. The execution is pretty different, though. Whereas San Juan is balanced, elegant and peaceful, Glory to Rome is complex, unbalanced and interactive. That's neither good or bad, it's just different. An indication of the differences can be seen in the basic roles... There's gathering materials, there's building buildings. There's also stealing materials from other players and hiding goods meant for the reconstruction of Rome in your vault. The buildings add further chaos by providing different ways to mess with the other players' games and altering the rules in pretty powerful ways. The game also introduces a new kind of resource, "clients", which allow a player to do the action of the chosen role as many times as they have of the correct client. This means that a player could conceivably set themselves up to take many times more turns than the other players.
Our first game went remarkably well. Considering everything going on, the game plays smoothly and logically. Kozure built the Forum about mid-game, which gives him instant victory if he can manage to gather one of each type of client. All he needed was a merchant, but we all worked together to prevent one from coming up. In the meantime, Bharmer built a Basilica which allowed him to steal cards to his vault directly from his hand. Let's just say we were all so focussed on preventing Kozure's automatic win that we didn't notice how many points Bharmer was stowing away. He won the game by a significant margin.
Our initial reaction to the Forum was that it was too powerful. Turns out we might have been wrong after all. We've only played one game, but I suspect we will get to see many cards and combos that seem too powerful, only to then find the antidote. Glory to Rome manages to be fun, thematic and strategic despite it's appearance. It should be a fun ride getting to know this one.
Princes of Florence
We played correctly this week. It's such a wonderful game when things are working! It was quite a close finish. Luch was ahead for the entire game, but he had no Prestige cards. On the final round, Bharmer and I tied him. Unfortunately for them, I did have some prestige VPs left to score (though I only completed one of my two cards successfully). I won by a slim margin.
Pandemic
Pandemic was the second new game of the evening. I played a few rounds a couple of days before, and the whole thing seemed pretty easy to pick up. Seemed perfect for the final game of the evening.
Turns out "easy to pick up" doesn't equal "easy to win at".
Pandemic is a cooperative game where players work together to cure 4 major diseases spreading like wildfire across the globe. Each player takes on the role of a specialist (a medic, a scientist, etc). Cubes in four colours are seeded at the beginning of the game to start things off and right away the pressure is on to do some damage control. Each player's turn, the infection spreads (cubes are added to the board). When a cube would normally be added to a city that already has three, cubes are instead placed in each adjacent city. In the meantime, players try to accumulate 5 cards of each colour to find the cures and eradicate the diseases. One of the most innovative mechanics in the game is that the cards which are flipped to determine the spread of disease are shuffled and placed back on top of the deck everytime an "epidemic" card is drawn. In other words, the sick places get sicker. And fast.
Our first game started poorly. The first card drawn was an "epidemic" card, so the board got ugly pretty quick. Our inexperience led to an out of control epidemic within a few turns and we lost pretty decisively. We immediately wanted to play a second game, however (good sign), so we tried again. Although the second game also felt pretty rocky, we seemed to be holding our own (though the experience quickly and frequently careens from cautiously optimistic to nearly hopeless). Coming down to the wire, we had cured the red, yellow and blue disease. Black was left but we were one turn away from curing it as well, for the win. It came down to the draw of Bharmer's last card. There were only three left, and one was an epidemic. He drew the epidemic. If memory serves, Moscow was the last city to pop, ending the game.
Playing Pandemic felt a little like playing an old 80s video game, like Arkanoid or Berserk. You try to act fast, try to respond to what is being thrown at you. It doesn't feel terribly deep and there's lots of luck, but you can definitely hone your skills and improve. Also, it's fun.
I like that players truly have to work together to succeed. I like that it's not easy to win (we were playing on the normal difficulty with 4 players. I'm told it's easier with fewer players, and obviously if we had played the introductory difficulty we might have won in our first games). I also like that it's pretty short and simple to teach. Another good game.
Glory to Rome
San Juan should be pretty flattered. Race for the Galaxy and Glory to Rome are both very close cousins to the card game implementation of Puerto Rico. Whereas Race is pretty much a more complicated version of San Juan, Glory to Rome uses a similar basic system but strays a bit further in terms of gameplay.
Let's get some first impressions out of the way: the art on the cards is pretty bad. Really pretty bad. It's a kind of cartoony art that seems like something out of Munchkin. It's odd, too, because the actual layout of the cards is quite thoughtful, so someone was clearly thinking about presentation. Part of the problem with the art is that it gives the impression the game is going to be funny or light. It is isn't either. The only argument I can think of in favour of the comic style is the fact that the game features real, live, direct player interaction (sometimes referred to as "screwage"), which is often not welcome in the more serious euros.
Like San Juan, the basic system involves choosing from various roles in an effort to build various buildings, each of which confers special abilities to the player once built. Most VPs wins. The execution is pretty different, though. Whereas San Juan is balanced, elegant and peaceful, Glory to Rome is complex, unbalanced and interactive. That's neither good or bad, it's just different. An indication of the differences can be seen in the basic roles... There's gathering materials, there's building buildings. There's also stealing materials from other players and hiding goods meant for the reconstruction of Rome in your vault. The buildings add further chaos by providing different ways to mess with the other players' games and altering the rules in pretty powerful ways. The game also introduces a new kind of resource, "clients", which allow a player to do the action of the chosen role as many times as they have of the correct client. This means that a player could conceivably set themselves up to take many times more turns than the other players.
Our first game went remarkably well. Considering everything going on, the game plays smoothly and logically. Kozure built the Forum about mid-game, which gives him instant victory if he can manage to gather one of each type of client. All he needed was a merchant, but we all worked together to prevent one from coming up. In the meantime, Bharmer built a Basilica which allowed him to steal cards to his vault directly from his hand. Let's just say we were all so focussed on preventing Kozure's automatic win that we didn't notice how many points Bharmer was stowing away. He won the game by a significant margin.
Our initial reaction to the Forum was that it was too powerful. Turns out we might have been wrong after all. We've only played one game, but I suspect we will get to see many cards and combos that seem too powerful, only to then find the antidote. Glory to Rome manages to be fun, thematic and strategic despite it's appearance. It should be a fun ride getting to know this one.
Princes of Florence
We played correctly this week. It's such a wonderful game when things are working! It was quite a close finish. Luch was ahead for the entire game, but he had no Prestige cards. On the final round, Bharmer and I tied him. Unfortunately for them, I did have some prestige VPs left to score (though I only completed one of my two cards successfully). I won by a slim margin.
Pandemic
Pandemic was the second new game of the evening. I played a few rounds a couple of days before, and the whole thing seemed pretty easy to pick up. Seemed perfect for the final game of the evening.
Turns out "easy to pick up" doesn't equal "easy to win at".
Pandemic is a cooperative game where players work together to cure 4 major diseases spreading like wildfire across the globe. Each player takes on the role of a specialist (a medic, a scientist, etc). Cubes in four colours are seeded at the beginning of the game to start things off and right away the pressure is on to do some damage control. Each player's turn, the infection spreads (cubes are added to the board). When a cube would normally be added to a city that already has three, cubes are instead placed in each adjacent city. In the meantime, players try to accumulate 5 cards of each colour to find the cures and eradicate the diseases. One of the most innovative mechanics in the game is that the cards which are flipped to determine the spread of disease are shuffled and placed back on top of the deck everytime an "epidemic" card is drawn. In other words, the sick places get sicker. And fast.
Our first game started poorly. The first card drawn was an "epidemic" card, so the board got ugly pretty quick. Our inexperience led to an out of control epidemic within a few turns and we lost pretty decisively. We immediately wanted to play a second game, however (good sign), so we tried again. Although the second game also felt pretty rocky, we seemed to be holding our own (though the experience quickly and frequently careens from cautiously optimistic to nearly hopeless). Coming down to the wire, we had cured the red, yellow and blue disease. Black was left but we were one turn away from curing it as well, for the win. It came down to the draw of Bharmer's last card. There were only three left, and one was an epidemic. He drew the epidemic. If memory serves, Moscow was the last city to pop, ending the game.
Playing Pandemic felt a little like playing an old 80s video game, like Arkanoid or Berserk. You try to act fast, try to respond to what is being thrown at you. It doesn't feel terribly deep and there's lots of luck, but you can definitely hone your skills and improve. Also, it's fun.
I like that players truly have to work together to succeed. I like that it's not easy to win (we were playing on the normal difficulty with 4 players. I'm told it's easier with fewer players, and obviously if we had played the introductory difficulty we might have won in our first games). I also like that it's pretty short and simple to teach. Another good game.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Princes of *Teh Suck* (Goa, Princes of Florence)
It all started innocently enough...
Goa was the carry-over game from last week. I had mentioned last time that I would try to see what could be done by advancing the money and ships track, since I never seemed to use them much. With the extra money, I was able to make a couple of very strong bids. Of course, the money goes to another player, so I'm not convinced it's a good strategy in the long term.
It was a ridiculously close game. 35, 35, 35, 34. Kozure won the game with the most money as the tie-breaker.
Next we played Princes of Florence. Well, it may be more accurate to say we played some game using PoF game pieces. What it was we actually played is anyone's guess.
You see, we couldn't find the rulebook. PoF is one of m favorite games, and we've played it quite a few times as a group, so it shouldn't have been such an obstacle. Little details were hazy, though. We weren't sure what the starting money was. We figured it must have been roughly 1800 florin. We were wrong (it's 3500). Things went downhill from there.
In the first auction, everyone felt poor and Luch picked up his Jester for 200 florin. We should have packed up then and there, but we didn't.
During his second turn, Kozure realized he had made a mistake. He and I spent a considerable amount of time trying to reconstruct his previous turns, though in the end neither of us were really sure our conclusions were correct. Again, we should have just started over, but we didn't. Incidentally, we discovered later that our calculations were entirely off.
I normally do very well at PoF. This night I sucked. I was constantly having to spend prestige points to be able to afford my actions. I couldn't set myself for future actions to save my life. On the 5th round, I won a jester in an auction on purpose, just before I remembered that what I NEEDED was a park. That move meant I couldn't satisfy one of my prestige cards and couldn't complete more than one work over the next 2 rounds. I briefly calculated I lost 22 points.
Lastly, Bharmer realized (in a weird flurry of activity) that he was both miscalculating his prestige score AND scoring works as though he had features he didn't. It was at this point we came to the conclusion that the results of this session were entirely fictional and that it was impossible to determine the real winner. There was a fit of slightly maniacal laughter amongst the group as we tried to understand what had gone so wrong.
I *think* Luch played the whole game correctly, and so we declared his second place finish as the win.
We will be playing Princes again next week, if only to redeem ourselves.
Oh, and just to rub salt in the wounds we found the rules as we were putting away the game...
Goa was the carry-over game from last week. I had mentioned last time that I would try to see what could be done by advancing the money and ships track, since I never seemed to use them much. With the extra money, I was able to make a couple of very strong bids. Of course, the money goes to another player, so I'm not convinced it's a good strategy in the long term.
It was a ridiculously close game. 35, 35, 35, 34. Kozure won the game with the most money as the tie-breaker.
Next we played Princes of Florence. Well, it may be more accurate to say we played some game using PoF game pieces. What it was we actually played is anyone's guess.
You see, we couldn't find the rulebook. PoF is one of m favorite games, and we've played it quite a few times as a group, so it shouldn't have been such an obstacle. Little details were hazy, though. We weren't sure what the starting money was. We figured it must have been roughly 1800 florin. We were wrong (it's 3500). Things went downhill from there.
In the first auction, everyone felt poor and Luch picked up his Jester for 200 florin. We should have packed up then and there, but we didn't.
During his second turn, Kozure realized he had made a mistake. He and I spent a considerable amount of time trying to reconstruct his previous turns, though in the end neither of us were really sure our conclusions were correct. Again, we should have just started over, but we didn't. Incidentally, we discovered later that our calculations were entirely off.
I normally do very well at PoF. This night I sucked. I was constantly having to spend prestige points to be able to afford my actions. I couldn't set myself for future actions to save my life. On the 5th round, I won a jester in an auction on purpose, just before I remembered that what I NEEDED was a park. That move meant I couldn't satisfy one of my prestige cards and couldn't complete more than one work over the next 2 rounds. I briefly calculated I lost 22 points.
Lastly, Bharmer realized (in a weird flurry of activity) that he was both miscalculating his prestige score AND scoring works as though he had features he didn't. It was at this point we came to the conclusion that the results of this session were entirely fictional and that it was impossible to determine the real winner. There was a fit of slightly maniacal laughter amongst the group as we tried to understand what had gone so wrong.
I *think* Luch played the whole game correctly, and so we declared his second place finish as the win.
We will be playing Princes again next week, if only to redeem ourselves.
Oh, and just to rub salt in the wounds we found the rules as we were putting away the game...
Friday, June 06, 2008
Cards, Cards, Cards
First games night at my new house was a bit of an understated affair; Bharmer arrived late, Agent Easy was taking care of his sick wife and Shemp Duchamp is still taking time off to be with his wife and newborn child. Ouch, however, managed to both find the new location and show up on time. No matter, we killed time by eating leisurely and watching "Bender's Big Score" - the first Futurama TV movie.
Since we didn't have a quorum until around 8:15 PM, the night got off to a late start. We played two games of Race for the Galaxy, followed by starting (and almost finishing) a game of Plunder.
I'm still enjoying RftG, despite its reputation as a sort of auto-pilot solitaire game among some detractors. I do think that it will benefit from the additional player interaction promised in the expansion. One of the things I enjoy about it is the double-think aspect of role card selection, combined with trying to time your scout/develop/produce/trade/consume phasing to give yourself maximum advantage and -ahem- "screwing" your opponent.
If you don't pay attention, there's definitely a sense of auto-pilot in the game, but the random card draw also sometimes forces you to adapt or wholly discard strategies, especially if you aren't drawing the cards you need. Alternatively, you can go for the "deep search" seven (or eight with some exploration modifier) draws to try to get exactly what you want.
For a quick playing and well-themed game, there's also a decent amount of strategy, I feel, so I quite like this one.
I won the first game with a military strategy for Alpha Centauri - 37 points. Bharmer took the second with a pretty descent market economy strategy and 35 points. I came in a close second with 33. Ouch is still getting used to the game and is consequently not scoring quite as high as the rest of us.
I dragged out Plunder for the third (and final) game of the night. I'm certain there's a decent game in there somewhere, and this - if I recall correctly - third or fourth session of this game seems to have gone fairly well. I did modify the starting set-up somewhat, adding two additional open sea cards NW and SE of Tortuga. After this play, I think that this is a average-decent game that needed one more pass to make it good. It's still the best Pirate themed game I own/know of, unfortunately, that doesn't really say much. My friend Captain Physics has acquired a copy of Blackbeard, but I think that level of semi-wargame complexity is probably beyond the realm of preference for this WAGS group.
A good night, if a little abbreviated. Also, we ate a lot of Japanese themed food - yakitori chicken skewers, miso-basted salmon, Japanese white rice and green beans, as well as yummy PC wasabi-honey rice chips.
Since we didn't have a quorum until around 8:15 PM, the night got off to a late start. We played two games of Race for the Galaxy, followed by starting (and almost finishing) a game of Plunder.
I'm still enjoying RftG, despite its reputation as a sort of auto-pilot solitaire game among some detractors. I do think that it will benefit from the additional player interaction promised in the expansion. One of the things I enjoy about it is the double-think aspect of role card selection, combined with trying to time your scout/develop/produce/trade/consume phasing to give yourself maximum advantage and -ahem- "screwing" your opponent.
If you don't pay attention, there's definitely a sense of auto-pilot in the game, but the random card draw also sometimes forces you to adapt or wholly discard strategies, especially if you aren't drawing the cards you need. Alternatively, you can go for the "deep search" seven (or eight with some exploration modifier) draws to try to get exactly what you want.
For a quick playing and well-themed game, there's also a decent amount of strategy, I feel, so I quite like this one.
I won the first game with a military strategy for Alpha Centauri - 37 points. Bharmer took the second with a pretty descent market economy strategy and 35 points. I came in a close second with 33. Ouch is still getting used to the game and is consequently not scoring quite as high as the rest of us.
I dragged out Plunder for the third (and final) game of the night. I'm certain there's a decent game in there somewhere, and this - if I recall correctly - third or fourth session of this game seems to have gone fairly well. I did modify the starting set-up somewhat, adding two additional open sea cards NW and SE of Tortuga. After this play, I think that this is a average-decent game that needed one more pass to make it good. It's still the best Pirate themed game I own/know of, unfortunately, that doesn't really say much. My friend Captain Physics has acquired a copy of Blackbeard, but I think that level of semi-wargame complexity is probably beyond the realm of preference for this WAGS group.
A good night, if a little abbreviated. Also, we ate a lot of Japanese themed food - yakitori chicken skewers, miso-basted salmon, Japanese white rice and green beans, as well as yummy PC wasabi-honey rice chips.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
