Crom!
Kozure recently acquired The Age of Conan. He challenged the puny lot of us to play him. Meekly, we submitted to his will.
Let's get this out of the way: The rules for Conan take a hell of a lot of time to describe. We came in expecting to be able to switch on our Conan brain, and at first I was pretty concerned that this was actually a really fiddly brain burner. We've learned a large number of games in the years since we've started WAGS, and despite that I was surprised at how many there were and how complicated the game seemed (this is not meant as a slight to Kozure regarding his rules explanation... there is a lot of ground to cover). Luckily, in actual play it doesn't feel nearly as complicated and the theme of conquering territory in the land of Conan comes through just fine.
This is one of those games were there is a map, separated into regions, and each player has a number of units that they must use to conquer as much territory as possible. There are, of course, subsystems that attempt to give this game it's own particular flavour. in fact, there are a lot of them.
The first, and thematically most important, of these is the Conan figure. Over the course of the game, he will embark on 12 adventures over 3 ages. In each adventure, a card is turned up which identifies the region Conan is trying to reach. Players will bid to control Conan's movement, which is predictably important as it provides opportunities to share in the spoils of his adventures (treasure, women and defeated monsters) and, you know, if Conan happens to stroll through a region you plan on battling in while you control him... well, it's pretty good. Despite all this, the Conan figure is primarily an elaborate timer mechanism that is interwoven into the game but doesn't define it. In keeping with the it's name, players are playing a game that takes place during the age of Conan... not playing Conan himself. Although he has an important influence on the game he isn't the main focus... most of the game is about expanding your kingdom into new regions through conquest and political intrigue.
Actions are selected by rolling a central pool of 7 dice. Each dice has an action depicted on it, and on a player's turn they must select one die and perform that action. There is a therefore a random and shrinking set of actions to choose from. Once all the dice have been selected, the seven dice are re-rolled and form a fresh new pool. Choices range from military actions, to intrigue actions, to drawing cards and controlling Conan.
To conquer an empty region using military might a player must succeed in a series of battles, each one potentially on different terrain (the terrain is only important in as much as various cards and abilities can improve the player`s chances if they match). It's possible to force march and attempt more than one of the battles on a single turn, but it costs additional units. If the campaign is a success, the player scores VP and places a fort in his/ her colour on the region. Conquering a region that is occupied by enemy units is the same, except that a series of battles to eliminate the enemy units must be completed before moving on to the series of terrain based battles (and the attacker receives a Crom token for defeating the player's forces)
To conquer a region using intrigue, the player needs only make a single successful roll, but the odds are not calculated using military units. Instead, emmisary units are deployed and having them in proximity of the regions improves the player's chances. Unfortunately, no VPs are gained through Intrigue... instead a tower is placed and gold is awarded.
For every era, a number of Goal cards are layed out (similar to Railway Tycoon) which gives players VP bonuses for achieving certain criteria such as having the most towers in a specific region.
I feel this is already going long, so I won't get into every other detail, but there are also Kingdom specific decks of cards that players get throughout the game, sorcery tokens that can be used to re-roll dice, etc.
Every fourth adventure Conan completes ends an era. between eras, players gain gold, buy units and upgrade forts into cities (useful to satisfy goal cards).
At the end of the game (once Conan finishes his 12th adventure), bonus points are awarded according to criteria such as "most Crom tokens", "most gold", "most spoils tokens in a given category", etc. The most VPs win. There IS another way the game can end: If, in the third age, the player who controls Conan manages to bring him to his starting region he/she can attempt to crown Conan. This is done by declaring a category of Conan's spoils that he/she feels confident they have more of than any other player. If they are correct, the game ends immediately and only that player can gain bonus points for having the most spoils in any category. Although this doesn't translate into a huge amount of points, it could mean the difference in a close game.
Session report
I started in the central West region. Kozure to the south and Luch to the East. North was out of play.
I bid to control Conan, jus to see what would happen. With the cards I was drawing, I was able to win the auction for Conan on most rounds throughout the game. Given that controlling Conan is the best source of Spoils tokens, I had quite a lot of those.
Since there was a goal card for conquering a Wild Province (which is a characteristic identified on the board), I proceeded to attempt that on my first turn. It worked, though it was pricey as I chose to lose a few units and force march to get it done in one round. This continued round after round, as I focused on expanding through military conquest, typically force marching as I went to get it done quickly. I set up a single Intrigue takeover, and was succesful. Meanwhile, Luch appeared to be struggling to succeed at any of his takeovers, despite most of them being Intrigue based. Kozure was working his way north, and quickly was within a stone's throw of the regions I had conquered. Bloodshed was inevitable.
On two occasions, I took on Kozure's forces and was successful in eliminating him and then setting up my own fort. I have to admit that I always seemed to have powerful cards at my disposal (cards that allowed me to save a unit that should be eliminated, others that allowed me to force march without sacrificing a unit, etc).
In addition to this, my earlier success at conquering the Wild province and setting up a few forts and towers meant that I was scooping up nearly all the Goal card bonuses.
As a final nail in the coffin for Kozure and Luch, I managed to crown Conan and have majorities in two categories of spoils, gold and Crom tokens.
It was crushing victory which Conan would have been proud of. +/- 40 to +/- 10 each for Kozure and Luch.
Impressions
Age of Conan is a good game. In the category of conquest strategy games, it is certainly a complicated one, but that would be measured in terms of amount of rules not in fiddliness of play (players of StarCraft, or other similar Fantasy Flight conquest games will feel right at home). During the game, things move smoothly and logically. With the exception of battles, the game moves quickly as well (a surprise, given everything going on). Battles are potentially boring for those players not involved, but they don't happen all the time so it's not too big a deal. It is a slightly long game, but the pacing is good throughout (again, with the exception of some of the longer battles). For a Fantasy Flight game, this is often a concern for me.
The game heavily favours the bold, with an important caveat. The odds of attacking successfully are simply better than defending (whether we are speaking of a region's innate defense or attacking ennemy units). That's not a bad thing, but if you don't like to play this way you will lose. Some might see that as limiting strategic options, others might feel it suits the theme of the game just fine (I agree with the latter in this case). The caveat is that since taking an empty region also involves attacking, the most effective route to victory is to be "bold" and attack empty regions. The bonus for attacking other players (the Crom tokens) aren't worth enough to balance the fact that if two players kept attacking each other, a third player would easily win by going off on his own. Definitely pick your battles against other players.
I have a sense that the luck of the draw is a little overly important. Not in the combat, where you'd expect, because of the many subsystems which allow for planning ahead and mitigating the luck of the die... rather in the Goals that come up (which often favour earlier successes as much as future ones to undertake) and the Strategy cards that are used for bidding and combat (having the right card makes a substantial difference in your probabilities for success in combat, and having a 6 card for bidding on Conan is substantially better than a 2). The last place where this seemed to be an issue was the spoils tokens. A value 3 token is 3x more valuable than a 1, and your choice of token is often dictated by the seating position relative to when Conan happens to complete an adventure. There is opportunity to control this by bidding aggressively for Conan, but if you didn't get the right Strategy cards to bid with...
My runaway victory seems to point to a potential snowballing effect problem. We discussed it after the game, and it seems like other than the effect of infrastructure on Goal cards and income, it's not too bad. Since Kozure's previous plays did not exhibit this problem, I will chalk it up as an unusual occurrence rather than a problem with the fundamental game mechanics.
I look forward to playing again. This is a conquest game that blends some chaos with strategy, warfare and a great theme. It's not perfect, but it's definitely good so far.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Thursday, April 09, 2009
You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought. (Galaxy Trucker, Cosmic Encounter)
I've recently purchased Galaxy Trucker and it's expansion, but I kind of did it despite my better instincts.
I have found two of Vlaada (Vladimír) Chvátil's latest games quite fascinating... Galaxy Trucker and Space Alert. Anyone who reads this blog knows that as much as I enjoy Space Alert, it fell quite flat amongst the rest of the group. Galaxy Trucker has a similar gimmicky vibe to it, and it doesn't have a whole lot of interaction, but I couldn't resist giving it a shot because to me it sounded... fun.
Galaxy Trucker
In Galaxy Trucker, each player must build a space ship out of a common pile of parts (laser cannons, boosters, crew cabins, shields, etc) onto a predetermined ship layout and fly it across the universe in a race to the finish (with extra money to be made if cargo can be delivered at the same time).
The way it works is that there is, literally, a pile of tiles face down on the table. One player yells "Go!" and everyone takes tiles, one at a time, and decides if they want to add it to their ship board. Once a player is happy with their ship, a timer is turned which limits the time left for the other players to finish building. Since everyone is drawing from the same pile, there is incentive to act fast to find the wanted pieces...
Because of the puzzle-like nature of getting all the connections right, and aggravated by the time pressure, the ships that are created are... less than ideal. Connectors stick out, gaps can be found, whole sections of the ship are held by one tiny connecting point. When the ship takes off to fly the dangerous expanse of space, bad things can happen. A deck of event cards is made up for for the trip, and every player must face the challenges one at a time. Space pirates, meteor showers and epidemics on board can have devastating effects on the cobbled together ships. On the bright side, players often have the opportunity to stop and pick up cargo they can sell later on, should they make it to the end.
It's silly, but fun.
In our first flight, my ship was actually fairly well constructed. Shemp made a placement error and had to lose a section of his ship. In the end, it didn't matter much because the flight consisted of open space and cargo pick-ups... I made a fair amount of money and was doing well. In our second flight, I once again had a pretty decent ship. I had a ton of cargo holds, and luckily our flight was again mostly uneventful. I took home a hoard of cash.
By now, Kozure, Luch and Shemp must have been thinking the game was not what I had made it out to be. In in over 20 event cards, we had a single meteor shower. The rest were all beneficial cards.
Ah, but then there was round three. I built out my ship completely, and it had a very good balance of guns, boosters and cargo holds. I was feeling confident that I could turn my lead into a win. Unfortunately, our flight was significantly rougher this time... and I had a lot of sections of my ship dependent on a single connection point. On the first card, I lost 1/4 of my ship to a space pirate attack. The second card was a meteor shower that took out another quarter. Then my shield went. Then everything went. About half way through, I retired from the race with my decimated ship left without a human crew to fly it.
Shemp made it nearly to the end, but ultimately blew up as well. Luch and Kozure made it to the end, and Luch was loaded with goods. When the score was counted, it he had 20x the score of last place Shemp (60+ to 3)!!!
Despite a number of surfae similarities (designer, art, gimmicky design, etc) Galaxy Trucker turned out to be well received by the group. We laughed a lot, and it proved entertaining and challenging. Even the event card phase, where up 16 cards need to be resolved in turn, occurs quickly enough AND has *just* enough decision making to keep things engaging. I'm very happy this experiment was a success.
Cosmic Encounter
This was our second evening playing Cosmic Encounter, though it was the first game for Luch. I was the Vaccuum, Shemp was the Pacifist, Kozure was the (I can't remember the name, but they retrieve used artifacts) and Luch was the Clone.
We played to 5 colonies this time, and the game played exactly in an hour, which was perfect.
There was a couple of memorable moments, such as the negotiations between Luch and Shemp that would have ended the game in a shared victory that were cancelled through Kozure's emotion control (which was, itself, sapped and counter-zapped). A second fun moment occured when I switched Luch and Shemp's races permanently.
The Vaccuum's power of sucking a number of other player's ships into the warp every time I lost some of mine proved to be quite powerful. The sucking noises I made everytime I exercised this power on other players proved to be quite satisfying.
I spent the last few rounds of the game trying to land a shared victory with ANYONE because my hand sucked so bad I knew I couldn't win otherwise. It almost worked with Kozure, but it came down to a tie that went to the defender, Shemp. Kozure spent much of the later rounds with only one ship on each of his colonies, which seems to be a situation that is hard to get out of.
In the end, Shemp managed to claw his way back from a 3 point deficit and get the win!
Again, I had a lot of fun. I like the feel of the game. Negotiation, backstabbing, chaos and fun. Not to be taken too seriously, but there is still lots of room to manipulate the outcome.
I have found two of Vlaada (Vladimír) Chvátil's latest games quite fascinating... Galaxy Trucker and Space Alert. Anyone who reads this blog knows that as much as I enjoy Space Alert, it fell quite flat amongst the rest of the group. Galaxy Trucker has a similar gimmicky vibe to it, and it doesn't have a whole lot of interaction, but I couldn't resist giving it a shot because to me it sounded... fun.
Galaxy Trucker
In Galaxy Trucker, each player must build a space ship out of a common pile of parts (laser cannons, boosters, crew cabins, shields, etc) onto a predetermined ship layout and fly it across the universe in a race to the finish (with extra money to be made if cargo can be delivered at the same time).
The way it works is that there is, literally, a pile of tiles face down on the table. One player yells "Go!" and everyone takes tiles, one at a time, and decides if they want to add it to their ship board. Once a player is happy with their ship, a timer is turned which limits the time left for the other players to finish building. Since everyone is drawing from the same pile, there is incentive to act fast to find the wanted pieces...
Because of the puzzle-like nature of getting all the connections right, and aggravated by the time pressure, the ships that are created are... less than ideal. Connectors stick out, gaps can be found, whole sections of the ship are held by one tiny connecting point. When the ship takes off to fly the dangerous expanse of space, bad things can happen. A deck of event cards is made up for for the trip, and every player must face the challenges one at a time. Space pirates, meteor showers and epidemics on board can have devastating effects on the cobbled together ships. On the bright side, players often have the opportunity to stop and pick up cargo they can sell later on, should they make it to the end.
It's silly, but fun.
In our first flight, my ship was actually fairly well constructed. Shemp made a placement error and had to lose a section of his ship. In the end, it didn't matter much because the flight consisted of open space and cargo pick-ups... I made a fair amount of money and was doing well. In our second flight, I once again had a pretty decent ship. I had a ton of cargo holds, and luckily our flight was again mostly uneventful. I took home a hoard of cash.
By now, Kozure, Luch and Shemp must have been thinking the game was not what I had made it out to be. In in over 20 event cards, we had a single meteor shower. The rest were all beneficial cards.
Ah, but then there was round three. I built out my ship completely, and it had a very good balance of guns, boosters and cargo holds. I was feeling confident that I could turn my lead into a win. Unfortunately, our flight was significantly rougher this time... and I had a lot of sections of my ship dependent on a single connection point. On the first card, I lost 1/4 of my ship to a space pirate attack. The second card was a meteor shower that took out another quarter. Then my shield went. Then everything went. About half way through, I retired from the race with my decimated ship left without a human crew to fly it.
Shemp made it nearly to the end, but ultimately blew up as well. Luch and Kozure made it to the end, and Luch was loaded with goods. When the score was counted, it he had 20x the score of last place Shemp (60+ to 3)!!!
Despite a number of surfae similarities (designer, art, gimmicky design, etc) Galaxy Trucker turned out to be well received by the group. We laughed a lot, and it proved entertaining and challenging. Even the event card phase, where up 16 cards need to be resolved in turn, occurs quickly enough AND has *just* enough decision making to keep things engaging. I'm very happy this experiment was a success.
Cosmic Encounter
This was our second evening playing Cosmic Encounter, though it was the first game for Luch. I was the Vaccuum, Shemp was the Pacifist, Kozure was the (I can't remember the name, but they retrieve used artifacts) and Luch was the Clone.
We played to 5 colonies this time, and the game played exactly in an hour, which was perfect.
There was a couple of memorable moments, such as the negotiations between Luch and Shemp that would have ended the game in a shared victory that were cancelled through Kozure's emotion control (which was, itself, sapped and counter-zapped). A second fun moment occured when I switched Luch and Shemp's races permanently.
The Vaccuum's power of sucking a number of other player's ships into the warp every time I lost some of mine proved to be quite powerful. The sucking noises I made everytime I exercised this power on other players proved to be quite satisfying.
I spent the last few rounds of the game trying to land a shared victory with ANYONE because my hand sucked so bad I knew I couldn't win otherwise. It almost worked with Kozure, but it came down to a tie that went to the defender, Shemp. Kozure spent much of the later rounds with only one ship on each of his colonies, which seems to be a situation that is hard to get out of.
In the end, Shemp managed to claw his way back from a 3 point deficit and get the win!
Again, I had a lot of fun. I like the feel of the game. Negotiation, backstabbing, chaos and fun. Not to be taken too seriously, but there is still lots of room to manipulate the outcome.
Friday, April 03, 2009
I want Money. That's what I want. (Chinatown, Chicago Express, Pit)
Bharmer made an appearance this week, so it was back to a fivesome(?)
Despite providing Luch with a number of suggestions for games grouped by theme, he stuck to the oldest trick in the book: Let's play something new.
Chinatown, Chicago Express and Pit are all games I purchased recently and were still unplayed, and those are the ones he picked. I was happy to oblige.
Chinatown
I've mentioned a few times that I still have a soft spot for Monopoly. I don't really want to play it, but I miss the negotiations. Sadly, I haven't really played a euro that really excelled as a negotiation game, despite trying several (Traders of Genoa, Quo Vadis?, Settlers of Catan, Bohnanza, Intrige, Mall of Horror, Cosmic Encounter, etc). Many of those are really good games, but there always seems to be something in the system that prevents a wide range of negotiating techniques from being affective (There are too few bargaining elements in them to construct more than a handful of different types of trades. Of the lot, ToG comes closest: between cash, goods, cards and action chips there is some richness in what can be proposed. It's hard to pin down the reason, but the tightness of the economy forces most transactions to be short term and low value). I had high hoped that Chinatown would be the pure negotiation game I was looking for.
The game couldn't be simpler. The map depicts a few streets of New York's chinatown district. Each building is identified with a number. Each round, players get a number of cards indicating which buildings they own, and draw a number of tiles representing various stereotypical businesses which can set up shop. The player COULD choose to place those tiles onto the buildings he's been dealt, but far more money can be made by putting a number of identical business tiles adjacent to each other. So before placing, a round of free for all negotiations occurs where players attempt to secure adjacent buildings and multiple tiles in a few businesses. The process is repeated over six rounds. It's worth noting that items do not all have to be placed each round, so they can be carried forward to later rounds in the hopes of finding a better deal.
Chinatown actually comes very close to being my ideal trading game. Deals can be constructed around money, locations or businesses. They can be between two players, or they can involve a number of them. The nature of the deal can be concrete or speculative (i.e. it's possible to trade for future consideration). In short, it's very flexible and there's lots of possibilities. There were downsides, however.
The first, somewhat minor point is the lack of structure around the actual negotiations. Although in many ways it's a strength, with five players throwing offers across the table at once it became a little... noisy. If three people wanted Bharmer's tiles, three people found themselves trying to get his attention at once. In a way, I occasionally wished that offers could only be made by or towards a active player (but of course that would lengthen the game significantly).
The bigger problem is that the value of a trade can often be calculated perfectly. Particularly towards the end of the game, you know exactly how much money any particular transaction will yield. In Monopoly, players are forced to speculate on the value of a trade, based on the probabilities of players landing on their properties. Although purists might disagree, I feel that negotiations are more interesting when you don't really know how much income a trade will ultimately provide.
Although I'd be perfectly happy to play Chinatown again using the existing rules, I can't help but to try to come up with a variant that would introduce this aspect. My first idea was to introduce a probability mechanism such as Settlers of Catan, where two dice I rolled and that the some shops would pay out more often than others (probably several would pay out for every range of number, to reduce the large swings of luck). My second proposal, which I ultimately think would work better, is to take a cue from El Grande and introduce a roving element which impacts the value of the shops: the chinese dragon parade. It moves from one space to another adjacent space around the board randomly (or, similar to Santiago's canal, the path is determined through bidding/ negotiation/ blind auction). The value of a shop is determined according to it's proximity to the parade on a sliding scale (-$10 000 per intersection between business and parade, for example)
A number of variants have been proposed at BGG. One is to make it a condition that a business be street facing for it to make income, which would differentiate the value of some of the buildings and potentially add a further dimension to the trading. My fear with this one is that it would increase the effect of the luck of the draw, giving a substantial advantage to players that get street facing tiles. The other variant is a deck of cards that randomly assigns bonuses to certain businesses every round (this variant was included in the original Alea release). This type of bonus doesn't really appeal to me, because it's 100% random, giving advantages to players for dumb luck. I much prefer when a player can play the odds, or attempt to manipulate the outcome.
During our first game, I was very lucky to manage a 6 tile restaurant by the second round (I drew 4 of the six tiles, and only had to negotiate for two business tiles and a few restaurant tiles). It should have won me the game, but never underestimate the ability of Agent Easy to undermine his own position...
Actually, I did ok. Properties seemed to be valued above business tiles overall. Shemp and I were frequent trading partners. Bharmer seemed to often have the tiles and cards other people wanted. Kozure seemed shut out of much of the trading... not sure if that was a result of poor luck of the draw or lack of enthusiasm (or predilection) for the game. In the end, Shemp came out on top with over $1 000 000. I came in a close second, though.
A very good game, and another sign that Alea is the company to beat when it comes to excellence in contributions to quality german games. Glad to have added it to the collection.
Chicago Express
From one game with a reputation for packing a lot of game in roughly 1 hour to another. Chicago Express is a recent game put out by Queen (in the STUPID HUGE BOX FULL OF AIR that Thebes also uses). It's very interesting because it reduces the complex 18XX railroad games into a short, simple experience.
There are four railway companies at the start of the game, and each has a different number of shares for sale (3-6, I believe) and a different number of track markers. On a player's turn, they must decide if they are going to auction a share of a company or develop a company they have stock in (either by extending the track or developing an existing section to a higher level). So, there are really two things going on:
1) Players are buying shares of a company, giving that company money to develop itself. In exchange for giving the company capital, it pays dividends at certain intervals. Logically, the more shares are sold, the more the company payout gets divided.
2) Extending the reach of the company forces it to spend the money invested through the sale of shares. The value of the companies increase as they serves more and more regions, and as those regions develop. This increases the dividends the company can sell to it's shareholders.
So, you want to buy into the companies that are doing well, but buying into it means that all the shares are devalued. You want to develop a company, but the increase in value is shared by a number of other players. When I read the rules, the strategy seemed rather impenetrable despite the simple ruleset. Luckily, in actual play it was a little bit clearer.
Upon first inspection, it seems to be about taking a stake in a few companies and investing in them equally (giving little bits of improvement to other players, but more to yourself) and putting up shares for auction as much to dilute the shares as anything else. ClearClaw at BGG writes extensively about this game, and although I haven't read it all it's clear that he feels this way of looking at things is the newbie way... that the game becomes much more about subtle strategic positioning, partnerships and posturing as experience is gained. Whatever, time will tell (I don't really even *get* the reference to posturing).
In our game, none of the companies made it anywhere near Chicago, so the Wabash did not enter play. I'd say we were mainly focused on purchasing shares in companies that seemed valuable and developing them to make them more valuable. At one point, I took out a share in a company even though it was to my disadvantage because I wanted it to have cash to develop tracks. My plan was to cut off the red line to the north that 3 other players had invested in. It didn't work, because since there were three players interested in the line, it grew too quickly for me to be able to contain it. Oh well. Luckily, I was doing quite well with the yellow line as the sole owner. On one of my turns, I put up a share for auction and Luch pointed out that I was ending the game... it snuck up on me to the point that I had no idea that we were so close! I decided to stick to my plan and the game ended. I thought my chances were decent considering the yellow cash cow I had going. Sadly, I was forced to accept second place again, because baron Kozure had the most cash at the end.
It was an interesting game. I am not sure how I feel about it, because it's so short that it's difficult to say whether my mixed feelings stem more from misunderstanding what to expect from the game or what. For now, I'll say that I enjoyed it but that there seems to be a layer of understanding missing between me and loving the game.
Pit
I'm not going to discuss this one at length. Suffice it to say that it's an old classic (that is still new to us) meant to recreate the feeling of a stock market trader. Each player is trying to gather together all cards from one suit (corn, barley, etc) by yelling trade offers such as "I've got two! Two! Any takers for two??!!", while other do the same. Cards get exchanged frantically until someone completes their set and rings the bell kindly provided in the deluxe edition. Each hand lasts about 5 minutes, but players are meant to play to a set number of points.
This is the card game equivalent to Jungle Speed. From me, that's high praise. There is no depth here, but the process is lots of fun.
Kozure started off strong with a few wins. I was dealt 10 card hands in the first few rounds (due to the way the card numbers split up) and missed a number of times when I had the nine cards I needed but didn't realize I didn't need to make the 10th card match. Meanwhile, Luch was sinking like a rock. As the time was 11:15, we figured we would call it a night after one last hand. It was mentioned by Kozure that Luch could technically win if he won using the Bull and a 9 card set. That's what he did. I guess you're never truly out in Pit.
Despite providing Luch with a number of suggestions for games grouped by theme, he stuck to the oldest trick in the book: Let's play something new.
Chinatown, Chicago Express and Pit are all games I purchased recently and were still unplayed, and those are the ones he picked. I was happy to oblige.
Chinatown
I've mentioned a few times that I still have a soft spot for Monopoly. I don't really want to play it, but I miss the negotiations. Sadly, I haven't really played a euro that really excelled as a negotiation game, despite trying several (Traders of Genoa, Quo Vadis?, Settlers of Catan, Bohnanza, Intrige, Mall of Horror, Cosmic Encounter, etc). Many of those are really good games, but there always seems to be something in the system that prevents a wide range of negotiating techniques from being affective (There are too few bargaining elements in them to construct more than a handful of different types of trades. Of the lot, ToG comes closest: between cash, goods, cards and action chips there is some richness in what can be proposed. It's hard to pin down the reason, but the tightness of the economy forces most transactions to be short term and low value). I had high hoped that Chinatown would be the pure negotiation game I was looking for.
The game couldn't be simpler. The map depicts a few streets of New York's chinatown district. Each building is identified with a number. Each round, players get a number of cards indicating which buildings they own, and draw a number of tiles representing various stereotypical businesses which can set up shop. The player COULD choose to place those tiles onto the buildings he's been dealt, but far more money can be made by putting a number of identical business tiles adjacent to each other. So before placing, a round of free for all negotiations occurs where players attempt to secure adjacent buildings and multiple tiles in a few businesses. The process is repeated over six rounds. It's worth noting that items do not all have to be placed each round, so they can be carried forward to later rounds in the hopes of finding a better deal.
Chinatown actually comes very close to being my ideal trading game. Deals can be constructed around money, locations or businesses. They can be between two players, or they can involve a number of them. The nature of the deal can be concrete or speculative (i.e. it's possible to trade for future consideration). In short, it's very flexible and there's lots of possibilities. There were downsides, however.
The first, somewhat minor point is the lack of structure around the actual negotiations. Although in many ways it's a strength, with five players throwing offers across the table at once it became a little... noisy. If three people wanted Bharmer's tiles, three people found themselves trying to get his attention at once. In a way, I occasionally wished that offers could only be made by or towards a active player (but of course that would lengthen the game significantly).
The bigger problem is that the value of a trade can often be calculated perfectly. Particularly towards the end of the game, you know exactly how much money any particular transaction will yield. In Monopoly, players are forced to speculate on the value of a trade, based on the probabilities of players landing on their properties. Although purists might disagree, I feel that negotiations are more interesting when you don't really know how much income a trade will ultimately provide.
Although I'd be perfectly happy to play Chinatown again using the existing rules, I can't help but to try to come up with a variant that would introduce this aspect. My first idea was to introduce a probability mechanism such as Settlers of Catan, where two dice I rolled and that the some shops would pay out more often than others (probably several would pay out for every range of number, to reduce the large swings of luck). My second proposal, which I ultimately think would work better, is to take a cue from El Grande and introduce a roving element which impacts the value of the shops: the chinese dragon parade. It moves from one space to another adjacent space around the board randomly (or, similar to Santiago's canal, the path is determined through bidding/ negotiation/ blind auction). The value of a shop is determined according to it's proximity to the parade on a sliding scale (-$10 000 per intersection between business and parade, for example)
A number of variants have been proposed at BGG. One is to make it a condition that a business be street facing for it to make income, which would differentiate the value of some of the buildings and potentially add a further dimension to the trading. My fear with this one is that it would increase the effect of the luck of the draw, giving a substantial advantage to players that get street facing tiles. The other variant is a deck of cards that randomly assigns bonuses to certain businesses every round (this variant was included in the original Alea release). This type of bonus doesn't really appeal to me, because it's 100% random, giving advantages to players for dumb luck. I much prefer when a player can play the odds, or attempt to manipulate the outcome.
During our first game, I was very lucky to manage a 6 tile restaurant by the second round (I drew 4 of the six tiles, and only had to negotiate for two business tiles and a few restaurant tiles). It should have won me the game, but never underestimate the ability of Agent Easy to undermine his own position...
Actually, I did ok. Properties seemed to be valued above business tiles overall. Shemp and I were frequent trading partners. Bharmer seemed to often have the tiles and cards other people wanted. Kozure seemed shut out of much of the trading... not sure if that was a result of poor luck of the draw or lack of enthusiasm (or predilection) for the game. In the end, Shemp came out on top with over $1 000 000. I came in a close second, though.
A very good game, and another sign that Alea is the company to beat when it comes to excellence in contributions to quality german games. Glad to have added it to the collection.
Chicago Express
From one game with a reputation for packing a lot of game in roughly 1 hour to another. Chicago Express is a recent game put out by Queen (in the STUPID HUGE BOX FULL OF AIR that Thebes also uses). It's very interesting because it reduces the complex 18XX railroad games into a short, simple experience.
There are four railway companies at the start of the game, and each has a different number of shares for sale (3-6, I believe) and a different number of track markers. On a player's turn, they must decide if they are going to auction a share of a company or develop a company they have stock in (either by extending the track or developing an existing section to a higher level). So, there are really two things going on:
1) Players are buying shares of a company, giving that company money to develop itself. In exchange for giving the company capital, it pays dividends at certain intervals. Logically, the more shares are sold, the more the company payout gets divided.
2) Extending the reach of the company forces it to spend the money invested through the sale of shares. The value of the companies increase as they serves more and more regions, and as those regions develop. This increases the dividends the company can sell to it's shareholders.
So, you want to buy into the companies that are doing well, but buying into it means that all the shares are devalued. You want to develop a company, but the increase in value is shared by a number of other players. When I read the rules, the strategy seemed rather impenetrable despite the simple ruleset. Luckily, in actual play it was a little bit clearer.
Upon first inspection, it seems to be about taking a stake in a few companies and investing in them equally (giving little bits of improvement to other players, but more to yourself) and putting up shares for auction as much to dilute the shares as anything else. ClearClaw at BGG writes extensively about this game, and although I haven't read it all it's clear that he feels this way of looking at things is the newbie way... that the game becomes much more about subtle strategic positioning, partnerships and posturing as experience is gained. Whatever, time will tell (I don't really even *get* the reference to posturing).
In our game, none of the companies made it anywhere near Chicago, so the Wabash did not enter play. I'd say we were mainly focused on purchasing shares in companies that seemed valuable and developing them to make them more valuable. At one point, I took out a share in a company even though it was to my disadvantage because I wanted it to have cash to develop tracks. My plan was to cut off the red line to the north that 3 other players had invested in. It didn't work, because since there were three players interested in the line, it grew too quickly for me to be able to contain it. Oh well. Luckily, I was doing quite well with the yellow line as the sole owner. On one of my turns, I put up a share for auction and Luch pointed out that I was ending the game... it snuck up on me to the point that I had no idea that we were so close! I decided to stick to my plan and the game ended. I thought my chances were decent considering the yellow cash cow I had going. Sadly, I was forced to accept second place again, because baron Kozure had the most cash at the end.
It was an interesting game. I am not sure how I feel about it, because it's so short that it's difficult to say whether my mixed feelings stem more from misunderstanding what to expect from the game or what. For now, I'll say that I enjoyed it but that there seems to be a layer of understanding missing between me and loving the game.
Pit
I'm not going to discuss this one at length. Suffice it to say that it's an old classic (that is still new to us) meant to recreate the feeling of a stock market trader. Each player is trying to gather together all cards from one suit (corn, barley, etc) by yelling trade offers such as "I've got two! Two! Any takers for two??!!", while other do the same. Cards get exchanged frantically until someone completes their set and rings the bell kindly provided in the deluxe edition. Each hand lasts about 5 minutes, but players are meant to play to a set number of points.
This is the card game equivalent to Jungle Speed. From me, that's high praise. There is no depth here, but the process is lots of fun.
Kozure started off strong with a few wins. I was dealt 10 card hands in the first few rounds (due to the way the card numbers split up) and missed a number of times when I had the nine cards I needed but didn't realize I didn't need to make the 10th card match. Meanwhile, Luch was sinking like a rock. As the time was 11:15, we figured we would call it a night after one last hand. It was mentioned by Kozure that Luch could technically win if he won using the Bull and a 9 card set. That's what he did. I guess you're never truly out in Pit.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The second shipment (Container, Domaine)
We liked Container so much the first time, it was picked again this week, along with a game we haven't played in quite a while... Domaine.
Container
Our second session was quite different from the first. The biggest difference was the length... this one lasted 2.5 hours, which felt too long. The dynamics of the economy where different as well, though it's hard to describe what. I personally felt that I saw opportunities I missed the first time. For example, the advantage of buying from the factory store on your left revealed itself this game (freeing up space in the factory store encourages that player to produce more, and when they produce they pay a dollar to the player on their right). Similarly, it became apparent that a player can become blocked if they produce and store all they can, and then no one buys from them. Shemp found himself in this situation for quite a while, ultimately having to firesale his goods to get himself out of it. It was in intriguing situation, and it made me see that it would be possible for the game to choke if too many people miscalculated demand and then simultaneously started playing defensively.
Luch started out the game with a huge lead. He literally filled his section of the island with containers while we only had 1-3 of a single colour (so, you know, 0$ worth). Unfortunately for him, he couldn't capitalize on it. Although I don't know the exact reason, he couldn't finish the game as quickly as it looked like he was going to (it may be that he was saddled with debt... carrying as much as three shares at a time. And yes, we did figure out that the limit is supposed to be two, but since we started the game that way, and since other players had done the same, we finished it that way). Regardless, since he was SO far ahead with his goods, every other player had no incentive to finish the game until we could approach a similar stash. It took a long time, but ultimately myself and Kozure got a lot of goods to the central island. When the scores were tallied, it turned out to be unbelievably close: Me: 104, Luch 102, Kozure 101. Shemp, well, Shemp tried hard (kidding aside, he had a monstrous amount of cash in hand, but couldn't bring himself to bid the required amounts to get containers on the central island. He only netted 1$ from his containers there).
Still quite a good game, but if the next session lasts this long, I'll be removing some containers from the pool to make it shorter.
Domaine
Wow, it turns out I really suck at this game. Luch boxed-in one of my three castles a few turns into the game (in a move that happened to me in a previous game as well, apparently). I couldn't get anything going with my other to castles. Meanwhile, Shemp and Kozure were jockeying for first place, way ahead of me. Shemp had an impressive economic engine going, with three mines producing for him every round. Unfortunately, I was the kingmaker in my last move, either giving Kozure the win or Shemp, depending what I did. I played the move I was planning to make before I realized what was happening, and that meant Kozure won. Sorry Shemp!
Glad to get that one out again. There's a lot of game there in one hour. And we even managed to play it correctly!
Container
Our second session was quite different from the first. The biggest difference was the length... this one lasted 2.5 hours, which felt too long. The dynamics of the economy where different as well, though it's hard to describe what. I personally felt that I saw opportunities I missed the first time. For example, the advantage of buying from the factory store on your left revealed itself this game (freeing up space in the factory store encourages that player to produce more, and when they produce they pay a dollar to the player on their right). Similarly, it became apparent that a player can become blocked if they produce and store all they can, and then no one buys from them. Shemp found himself in this situation for quite a while, ultimately having to firesale his goods to get himself out of it. It was in intriguing situation, and it made me see that it would be possible for the game to choke if too many people miscalculated demand and then simultaneously started playing defensively.
Luch started out the game with a huge lead. He literally filled his section of the island with containers while we only had 1-3 of a single colour (so, you know, 0$ worth). Unfortunately for him, he couldn't capitalize on it. Although I don't know the exact reason, he couldn't finish the game as quickly as it looked like he was going to (it may be that he was saddled with debt... carrying as much as three shares at a time. And yes, we did figure out that the limit is supposed to be two, but since we started the game that way, and since other players had done the same, we finished it that way). Regardless, since he was SO far ahead with his goods, every other player had no incentive to finish the game until we could approach a similar stash. It took a long time, but ultimately myself and Kozure got a lot of goods to the central island. When the scores were tallied, it turned out to be unbelievably close: Me: 104, Luch 102, Kozure 101. Shemp, well, Shemp tried hard (kidding aside, he had a monstrous amount of cash in hand, but couldn't bring himself to bid the required amounts to get containers on the central island. He only netted 1$ from his containers there).
Still quite a good game, but if the next session lasts this long, I'll be removing some containers from the pool to make it shorter.
Domaine
Wow, it turns out I really suck at this game. Luch boxed-in one of my three castles a few turns into the game (in a move that happened to me in a previous game as well, apparently). I couldn't get anything going with my other to castles. Meanwhile, Shemp and Kozure were jockeying for first place, way ahead of me. Shemp had an impressive economic engine going, with three mines producing for him every round. Unfortunately, I was the kingmaker in my last move, either giving Kozure the win or Shemp, depending what I did. I played the move I was planning to make before I realized what was happening, and that meant Kozure won. Sorry Shemp!
Glad to get that one out again. There's a lot of game there in one hour. And we even managed to play it correctly!
Saturday, March 21, 2009
You can't drink glue... (Down in Flames-Aces High x2, Container)
Unfortunately for Luch, his bike got a flat tire on his way to Kozure's place. Although Container was the main event for the evening, we played a hand of Kozure's "Down in Flames - Aces High" while we waited.
Down in Flames - Aces High
This is essentially a reissue of a game we've played before called Zero!, with updated graphics and gameplay. I haven't played the old version often enough to really see the difference, so I'll talk mostly about the new version.
Down in Flames is a card game about World War 2 aerial combat. Each player gets a plane with characteristics such as "performance", "number of bursts", etc. From a common deck of maneuver cards, each player gets a hand. Players then proceed to take turns attempting to gain position on each other's planes and taking shots when the opportunity arises. The system consists primarily of maneuvres and counter maneuvres. If I play a "barrel roll", you can counter it with a card that lists barrel roll in the counter section.
From memory, I'd say that the game feels pretty much the same as the previous incarnation. There seems to be a lot more countering involved, however (in other words, when you lay a card, most times it gets countered). I suppose this makes it more like real aerial combat, where maneuvering can go on for a while before a good shot is available. From a game perspective, I was wondering once in a while what I could do to increase my odds of success, and I couldn't figure it out. Players draw cards at the beginning and the end of their turn, so a cautious player can easily have a full hand most of the time. This means that most of the time you have what you need to counter the other player's card. I assume that experienced players get to know the relative rarity of the cards, and can therefore estimate how likely a particular card is to play successfully. For a new player, success and failure feels fairly random.
That's not really a bad thing, however. As a card game, it plays pretty quickly and the "dance" is simulated well. Taking a chance on a big shot and having it succeed is fun, and getting out of a tough situation and turning reversing the situation leads to memorable moments. Of the various war themed card games Kozure owns (and he seems to own a few), this is easily my favorite.
I was the first to go "down in flames". When we played again as the evening closer, I went down first again. Come to think of it, I typically go down first in Wings of War as well... Hmm.... I should make it a point never to fly a plane in real life.
Container
Luch having arrived, we set up Container. I've been intrigued by this game from the moment I read about it, but for whatever reason I held off purchasing until now. It's a game about manufacturing and shipping containers that successfully creates a mini economy between the players in the process. I've heard it can be somewhat fragile, in the sense that if players play "incorrectly", the game can grind to a halt, or some players can be shut out. I was very curious to see if the issues were real.
The system is simple enough. Every player starts the game with one factory (each producing a different kind of good), one good produced and one storage shed in the docks. There is an island at the center of the table. Players try to produce goods, sell them to each other, load them onto ships and deliver them to the central island for sale. The trick is that at every step of the way, the players control various aspects of supply and demand... How much of a given good will I produce? What price will I set for the goods I produce? What price will I set for the goods I sell at my docks? Which goods will I bring to the island for auction? In addition, each player has a secret goal card which describes how many points the different goods are worth to that player, ensuring that everyone sees the goods on offer a little bit differently. A final twist is that there is a bonus for getting at least one of every type of good, and the good you have the most of on the island doesn't score...
The whole system DOES do a good job of creating a mini-economy. We didn't see the economy stall in our learning game, so I imagine it's not that fragile. Early on, it appeared that Kozure, Shemp and Luch where expanding their docks while I was adding factories. I flooded the market with goods I ultimately wanted on the island, in the hopes that they would eventually get there. As the game went on, I started making black goods available ultra cheap, because they were my lowest scorer and I obviously wanted that to be the colour I discarded when scores were calculated. It worked. I managed to get a lot of high scoring containers on the island and had enough black ones to cover them. Although I had -4 cash in hand, the cash generated on the island was enough to win me the game.
This game kept me thinking for a while after we played it. On one hand, I was engrossed in a way very few games manage to do (El Grande comes to mind, but few others). Trying to figure out how you can manipulate the economy, trying to guess what your opponents are trying to do and how you can turn that to your advantage, etc, really had me thinking. I definitely enjoyed myself quite a bit. On the other hand, there aren't many different things to do. On a couple of turns, it was a struggle to find two actions worth doing. It's far to early to tell if the game would get repetitive quicker than it should, but for now I can say without reservation that I'm looking forward to playing again.
Down in Flames - Aces High
This is essentially a reissue of a game we've played before called Zero!, with updated graphics and gameplay. I haven't played the old version often enough to really see the difference, so I'll talk mostly about the new version.
Down in Flames is a card game about World War 2 aerial combat. Each player gets a plane with characteristics such as "performance", "number of bursts", etc. From a common deck of maneuver cards, each player gets a hand. Players then proceed to take turns attempting to gain position on each other's planes and taking shots when the opportunity arises. The system consists primarily of maneuvres and counter maneuvres. If I play a "barrel roll", you can counter it with a card that lists barrel roll in the counter section.
From memory, I'd say that the game feels pretty much the same as the previous incarnation. There seems to be a lot more countering involved, however (in other words, when you lay a card, most times it gets countered). I suppose this makes it more like real aerial combat, where maneuvering can go on for a while before a good shot is available. From a game perspective, I was wondering once in a while what I could do to increase my odds of success, and I couldn't figure it out. Players draw cards at the beginning and the end of their turn, so a cautious player can easily have a full hand most of the time. This means that most of the time you have what you need to counter the other player's card. I assume that experienced players get to know the relative rarity of the cards, and can therefore estimate how likely a particular card is to play successfully. For a new player, success and failure feels fairly random.
That's not really a bad thing, however. As a card game, it plays pretty quickly and the "dance" is simulated well. Taking a chance on a big shot and having it succeed is fun, and getting out of a tough situation and turning reversing the situation leads to memorable moments. Of the various war themed card games Kozure owns (and he seems to own a few), this is easily my favorite.
I was the first to go "down in flames". When we played again as the evening closer, I went down first again. Come to think of it, I typically go down first in Wings of War as well... Hmm.... I should make it a point never to fly a plane in real life.
Container
Luch having arrived, we set up Container. I've been intrigued by this game from the moment I read about it, but for whatever reason I held off purchasing until now. It's a game about manufacturing and shipping containers that successfully creates a mini economy between the players in the process. I've heard it can be somewhat fragile, in the sense that if players play "incorrectly", the game can grind to a halt, or some players can be shut out. I was very curious to see if the issues were real.
The system is simple enough. Every player starts the game with one factory (each producing a different kind of good), one good produced and one storage shed in the docks. There is an island at the center of the table. Players try to produce goods, sell them to each other, load them onto ships and deliver them to the central island for sale. The trick is that at every step of the way, the players control various aspects of supply and demand... How much of a given good will I produce? What price will I set for the goods I produce? What price will I set for the goods I sell at my docks? Which goods will I bring to the island for auction? In addition, each player has a secret goal card which describes how many points the different goods are worth to that player, ensuring that everyone sees the goods on offer a little bit differently. A final twist is that there is a bonus for getting at least one of every type of good, and the good you have the most of on the island doesn't score...
The whole system DOES do a good job of creating a mini-economy. We didn't see the economy stall in our learning game, so I imagine it's not that fragile. Early on, it appeared that Kozure, Shemp and Luch where expanding their docks while I was adding factories. I flooded the market with goods I ultimately wanted on the island, in the hopes that they would eventually get there. As the game went on, I started making black goods available ultra cheap, because they were my lowest scorer and I obviously wanted that to be the colour I discarded when scores were calculated. It worked. I managed to get a lot of high scoring containers on the island and had enough black ones to cover them. Although I had -4 cash in hand, the cash generated on the island was enough to win me the game.
This game kept me thinking for a while after we played it. On one hand, I was engrossed in a way very few games manage to do (El Grande comes to mind, but few others). Trying to figure out how you can manipulate the economy, trying to guess what your opponents are trying to do and how you can turn that to your advantage, etc, really had me thinking. I definitely enjoyed myself quite a bit. On the other hand, there aren't many different things to do. On a couple of turns, it was a struggle to find two actions worth doing. It's far to early to tell if the game would get repetitive quicker than it should, but for now I can say without reservation that I'm looking forward to playing again.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Calpulli - in - space!!! (Mexica, Space Alert! x2, Jungle Speed)
It's been a few weeks, I was glad to be back.
I traded away a few games recently for Mexica, an older title from the Kramer & Kielsing's "Mask Trilogy" (Tikal, Java and Mexica). Tikal is a game I really like, and Mexica has been described as a faster playing and shorter game that still has interesting gameplay. I've had a few opportunities to get it at trades over the years, and always passed. Finally, curiosity finally got the better of me.
Mexica
Like the rest of the Mask trilogy, Mexica is essentially an area majority game. Here, players place canal tiles to subdivide a large island into smaller regions (which is worth points), and then try to earn further points by gaining majorities in the created regions (the measure of a player's influence in a region is determined by having the largest temples).
Another characteristic it shares with Tikal and Java is that it's based on the action point system. Mexica gives 6 points with which to build canals, temples, bridges, or simply to move around the board. One twist is that up to 2 points may be carried over to future rounds.
I found that the game is certainly shorter than Tikal, but that the level of confrontation and opportunity for "screwage" is far higher than I would normally associate with a "light" game. In my mind, this is much more of a medium weight game... in line with Settlers of Catan and the like.
We started by settling the edge of the board and working our way inwards. There was a substantial amount of nasty blocking and stealing of majorities by all players (a good thing), but Kozure seemed to always be a few steps ahead. The fact that he secured the majority in the unfounded region at the center of the board when the game ended only cemented his win.
I've now played twice (once with WAGS, and once with my in-laws) and both games have been very enjoyable. I have this strange feeling that the incentive to actually end the first round might prove to be lacking, since the first player to do it is at a substantial disadvantage, but we'll see.
Space Alert!
We attempted Space Alert! again, this time with 4 players. After we got creamed in our first session, we decided it would be best if we tried again. Hopefully experience counts for something, right? No. We died again.
This game is certainly an odd duck. My enthusiasm for it has not diminished, despite our continued dismal showings. On the other hand, the group still doesn't seem sold on it (not sure what Luch thought of it). The chaos factor is high, and apparently our ability to self organize under pressure is lacking.
- We have difficulty setting targets, like "fire guns in the red sector on the 6th phase" and making them happen.
- We don't pay enough attention to the text on the threats that come up. In this session, we coordinated an attack on an internal threat, but it was unharmed because none of us noticed it would move around the ship when it crossed the "X" event.
- etc. etc.
Anyway, I had a great time, despite sucking at it. I'm sure that if we kept playing it we'd get better and eventually succeed frequently but I don't get the sense that our group will ever find out! Oh well, at least it plays solo.
Shemp also mentioned that he was surprised I liked the game since I have often complained about unnecessary "fiddliness" in the past. He's right, but for the type of gaming experience this game offers it doesn't bother me. I wish it had been streamlined more, of course, but I also give it credit for being an original idea for a game.
Jungle Speed
We ended with Jungle Speed. It's been a while, so we were all quite rusty. I warmed up in time, and won the game after a shaky start. Fun game usual... perfect for what it is!
I traded away a few games recently for Mexica, an older title from the Kramer & Kielsing's "Mask Trilogy" (Tikal, Java and Mexica). Tikal is a game I really like, and Mexica has been described as a faster playing and shorter game that still has interesting gameplay. I've had a few opportunities to get it at trades over the years, and always passed. Finally, curiosity finally got the better of me.
Mexica
Like the rest of the Mask trilogy, Mexica is essentially an area majority game. Here, players place canal tiles to subdivide a large island into smaller regions (which is worth points), and then try to earn further points by gaining majorities in the created regions (the measure of a player's influence in a region is determined by having the largest temples).
Another characteristic it shares with Tikal and Java is that it's based on the action point system. Mexica gives 6 points with which to build canals, temples, bridges, or simply to move around the board. One twist is that up to 2 points may be carried over to future rounds.
I found that the game is certainly shorter than Tikal, but that the level of confrontation and opportunity for "screwage" is far higher than I would normally associate with a "light" game. In my mind, this is much more of a medium weight game... in line with Settlers of Catan and the like.
We started by settling the edge of the board and working our way inwards. There was a substantial amount of nasty blocking and stealing of majorities by all players (a good thing), but Kozure seemed to always be a few steps ahead. The fact that he secured the majority in the unfounded region at the center of the board when the game ended only cemented his win.
I've now played twice (once with WAGS, and once with my in-laws) and both games have been very enjoyable. I have this strange feeling that the incentive to actually end the first round might prove to be lacking, since the first player to do it is at a substantial disadvantage, but we'll see.
Space Alert!
We attempted Space Alert! again, this time with 4 players. After we got creamed in our first session, we decided it would be best if we tried again. Hopefully experience counts for something, right? No. We died again.
This game is certainly an odd duck. My enthusiasm for it has not diminished, despite our continued dismal showings. On the other hand, the group still doesn't seem sold on it (not sure what Luch thought of it). The chaos factor is high, and apparently our ability to self organize under pressure is lacking.
- We have difficulty setting targets, like "fire guns in the red sector on the 6th phase" and making them happen.
- We don't pay enough attention to the text on the threats that come up. In this session, we coordinated an attack on an internal threat, but it was unharmed because none of us noticed it would move around the ship when it crossed the "X" event.
- etc. etc.
Anyway, I had a great time, despite sucking at it. I'm sure that if we kept playing it we'd get better and eventually succeed frequently but I don't get the sense that our group will ever find out! Oh well, at least it plays solo.
Shemp also mentioned that he was surprised I liked the game since I have often complained about unnecessary "fiddliness" in the past. He's right, but for the type of gaming experience this game offers it doesn't bother me. I wish it had been streamlined more, of course, but I also give it credit for being an original idea for a game.
Jungle Speed
We ended with Jungle Speed. It's been a while, so we were all quite rusty. I warmed up in time, and won the game after a shaky start. Fun game usual... perfect for what it is!
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Now that we've got THAT out of the way (Caylus)
I wasn't there, but the group played Caylus this week.
As a group we kind of avoided this one when the hype was on. Sounded too long, too complicated and too samey for me to seek it out, and Kozure didn't seem motivated either.
Bharmer got it. It sounds like the group liked it, though Luch noted it's probably best with fewer players due to length.
As a group we kind of avoided this one when the hype was on. Sounded too long, too complicated and too samey for me to seek it out, and Kozure didn't seem motivated either.
Bharmer got it. It sounds like the group liked it, though Luch noted it's probably best with fewer players due to length.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
A Perfect Storm (Fury of Dracula, Entdecker)
We were three players again, so my plans to pick Cosmic Encounter and Space Alert were dashed. Instead, I chose Fury of Dracula and Entdecker.
Fury of Dracula
Kozure and I have been Dracula numerous times, so Shemp tried his hand as the count for the first time. After the usual rules recap (man, this game has a lot of rules), we started the search. Kozure and I decided after a few turns that Drac was likely in the east... and a bit of searching there revealed his trail as we had hoped. Shemp managed to elude us for a while, but didn't manage to leave the east. Cornered by our four investigators, he tried to escape to sea. Unfortunately for him, I had stormy seas in hand and I was 99% sure I knew which sea space he was in. Even more unfortunate (for Shemp, anyway), after I picked correctly he revealed that to get back to land he needed to cross his path! After losing the blood and clearing his trail, we knew exactly where he was and we closed in for the kill. Outnumbered, outequipped and forced to fight during the day the vamp was slaughtered over the course of a few combats. At 1.5 hours, this was likely the shortest game of Fury of Dracula ever.
This game is interesting because while there is definite room for skill, strategy and cunning, the order that the cards come out can create situations that heavily favour one side or the other. In this case, the only "mistake" Shemp made was to leave himself no way out if he was ever forced to return to land. If I didn't have that card, he would have made a perfect escape and we would have lost him.
While it wasn't a normal session, it was still fun. I wonder whether Shemp will want a rematch next week?
Entecker
Entdecker is a game that I picked up in a math trade, and which exemplifies the problem with good games that don't stand out. For whatever reason, even though the game is enjoyable it lacks a certain spark. I mean, the theme of sea exploration is well captured by the mechanics, the idea of the players creating the regions to be scored is one I quite like and there is no denying that the seascape created in the game is quite attractive. Still, it's ultimately a Carcassonne and El Grande mash-up, a VP fest. As Kozure pointed out, it's also a little long for what it is.
It does work though, and I do do enjoy playing it.
Even though Shemp hadn't yet played it, he did very well. He snagged a couple of big islands, and my attempts to come in 2nd in as many islands as I could didn't pay off. When the native huts where all tallied, he beat me by about a dozen points.
Fury of Dracula
Kozure and I have been Dracula numerous times, so Shemp tried his hand as the count for the first time. After the usual rules recap (man, this game has a lot of rules), we started the search. Kozure and I decided after a few turns that Drac was likely in the east... and a bit of searching there revealed his trail as we had hoped. Shemp managed to elude us for a while, but didn't manage to leave the east. Cornered by our four investigators, he tried to escape to sea. Unfortunately for him, I had stormy seas in hand and I was 99% sure I knew which sea space he was in. Even more unfortunate (for Shemp, anyway), after I picked correctly he revealed that to get back to land he needed to cross his path! After losing the blood and clearing his trail, we knew exactly where he was and we closed in for the kill. Outnumbered, outequipped and forced to fight during the day the vamp was slaughtered over the course of a few combats. At 1.5 hours, this was likely the shortest game of Fury of Dracula ever.
This game is interesting because while there is definite room for skill, strategy and cunning, the order that the cards come out can create situations that heavily favour one side or the other. In this case, the only "mistake" Shemp made was to leave himself no way out if he was ever forced to return to land. If I didn't have that card, he would have made a perfect escape and we would have lost him.
While it wasn't a normal session, it was still fun. I wonder whether Shemp will want a rematch next week?
Entecker
Entdecker is a game that I picked up in a math trade, and which exemplifies the problem with good games that don't stand out. For whatever reason, even though the game is enjoyable it lacks a certain spark. I mean, the theme of sea exploration is well captured by the mechanics, the idea of the players creating the regions to be scored is one I quite like and there is no denying that the seascape created in the game is quite attractive. Still, it's ultimately a Carcassonne and El Grande mash-up, a VP fest. As Kozure pointed out, it's also a little long for what it is.
It does work though, and I do do enjoy playing it.
Even though Shemp hadn't yet played it, he did very well. He snagged a couple of big islands, and my attempts to come in 2nd in as many islands as I could didn't pay off. When the native huts where all tallied, he beat me by about a dozen points.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Backstabstract (So Long, Sucker! x2, Cosmic Encounter x2)
It was Shemp's pick, and it was positively Luchian: He did a search on BGG for the word "Backstabby" and then selected 5 games from the list it returned. In the end it didn't matter, we played two sessions of two of the games instead.
So Long, Sucker!
This is an abstract backstabby game (or "Backstabstract", if you will) which was co-designed by John Nash, the mathematician featured in "A Beautiful Mind".
It's simple on the surface, as abstracts often are. It's a chip placement game, but with a heavy emphasis on cutting deals a la Intrigue.
We played two games, and lots of deals were made. Moves can be planned several turns in advance, and frequently a whole sequence of turns would be proposed between two players to achieve a certain nefarious goal. Our group showed a particular knack for living up to the letter of the agreements, but not the spirit: loopholes in agreements where gleefully exploited (not that the game forces players to live up to agreements, but it's more fun to do it this way). Kozure masterminded his way to the top in game 1, and Shemp edged me out in game 2.
Cosmic Encounter
I have the new Fantasy Flight version of this game from the late 70s/ early 80s. I had high hopes for it as a light, fun game with lots of negotiation, backstabbery and variety.
The goal in cosmic Encounter is to get your ships on 5 of the other player's planets first. The basic structure of the game is that on your turn you draw a card which instructs you regarding which player to attack. Then, alliances are made on the offensive and defensive side, each main player chooses a card from their hand and the highest total (number on card + number of ships) wins. If you win as the attacker, you and your allies get to set up a colony on that player's planet. If you win as the defender, your planet is safe and your allies get to draw cards or recuperate destroyed ships as compensation.
This basic structure is livened up by the fact that each player represents a race which has a unique, game changing power. Also, the attack deck is peppered with "flares" which are limited versions of all the race powers in play (which become "super flares" in the hands of the correct race). Finally, in addition to the attack and flare cards, there are "negotiate" cards which allow... negotation.
In our first game, I was the "observer" race. My power was that my allies don't die in battle. I thought it sounded intriguing, and on the very first turn I asked Shemp to help me in a battle under the pretense that "he had nothing to lose". Beleiving this to be true, he committed a large part of his army of flying saucers to my cause. Little did either of us know, but there are cards in the attack deck which cancel the use of a race power. Kozure, playing the "Zombie" race, prevented me from saving Shemp's ships when I lost. Shemp never recovered. Although Kozure was easily dominating the game, Bharmer spied an opportunity to sneak his way to 4 colonies on his turn, giving him the win.
I think we all had a good time, and it was short enough to try again so we did.
In our second game, I player "The Loser". This race has the ability to reverse the winning conditions in a battle (i.e. a win result means "lose", a lose result means "win". Kozure was "The Oracle" which forces battling opponents to reveal their card before the Oracle reveals hers. Shemp was a race that grew in strength when it won a battle, and grew even more when it lost. Bharmer had a power which allowed him to keep a full hand at all times.
For whatever reason, we struggled on a couple occasions to figure out how certain powers interact. There was a situation where I, as the Loser, reversed the win conditions to a battle with Kozure, the Oracle. I reversed the win conditions but he only had a negotiate, so what happens then? We ruled that the negotiate card would normally lose and collect retribution, so if reversed he should win and collect retribution. Another example: If the Oracle has her super flare, which allows her to stop a combat and send the attacking aliens home, but when attacked she has no encounter cards left and should therefore draw a new hand. When I looked at the timing listed on the cards afterwatrds, it was clear that the hand needed to be discarded and re-shuffled (the artifact can only be played in the "resolution phase", which occurs after both players have chosen their cards).
The struggle to interpret cards led to more downtime for the other players. Also, we seemed to get more greedy because players were refusing any allies during most of the combats. As a result, it was substantially less fun than the first session.
I won by converting a combat in to negotiations and proposing a simple exchange of colonies with Kozure, who didn't notice it would win me the game (it was late and everyone needed to leave, so it was okay, right?).
If we can keep the game length down, get comfortable enough with the rules and interactions that sessions don't devolve into interpretation parties and ratchet up the negotiations and backstabbing, I think this could be a great game (that is a lot of "ifs", however). The powers really do have a major impact on the feel of the game, and negotiations are similarly affected. There isn't a large number of items to negotiate for other than allowing bases on planets, which is a touch disappointing. However, the impact and interaction of the race powers means that while in each individual game there may not be a lot of depth in deal making, the kinds of interaction, negotiation and backstabbing that are likely to take place are going to be fairly different from game to game. That's a good thing in my book.
It was fun. Looking forward to trying it again.
So Long, Sucker!
This is an abstract backstabby game (or "Backstabstract", if you will) which was co-designed by John Nash, the mathematician featured in "A Beautiful Mind".
It's simple on the surface, as abstracts often are. It's a chip placement game, but with a heavy emphasis on cutting deals a la Intrigue.
We played two games, and lots of deals were made. Moves can be planned several turns in advance, and frequently a whole sequence of turns would be proposed between two players to achieve a certain nefarious goal. Our group showed a particular knack for living up to the letter of the agreements, but not the spirit: loopholes in agreements where gleefully exploited (not that the game forces players to live up to agreements, but it's more fun to do it this way). Kozure masterminded his way to the top in game 1, and Shemp edged me out in game 2.
Cosmic Encounter
I have the new Fantasy Flight version of this game from the late 70s/ early 80s. I had high hopes for it as a light, fun game with lots of negotiation, backstabbery and variety.
The goal in cosmic Encounter is to get your ships on 5 of the other player's planets first. The basic structure of the game is that on your turn you draw a card which instructs you regarding which player to attack. Then, alliances are made on the offensive and defensive side, each main player chooses a card from their hand and the highest total (number on card + number of ships) wins. If you win as the attacker, you and your allies get to set up a colony on that player's planet. If you win as the defender, your planet is safe and your allies get to draw cards or recuperate destroyed ships as compensation.
This basic structure is livened up by the fact that each player represents a race which has a unique, game changing power. Also, the attack deck is peppered with "flares" which are limited versions of all the race powers in play (which become "super flares" in the hands of the correct race). Finally, in addition to the attack and flare cards, there are "negotiate" cards which allow... negotation.
In our first game, I was the "observer" race. My power was that my allies don't die in battle. I thought it sounded intriguing, and on the very first turn I asked Shemp to help me in a battle under the pretense that "he had nothing to lose". Beleiving this to be true, he committed a large part of his army of flying saucers to my cause. Little did either of us know, but there are cards in the attack deck which cancel the use of a race power. Kozure, playing the "Zombie" race, prevented me from saving Shemp's ships when I lost. Shemp never recovered. Although Kozure was easily dominating the game, Bharmer spied an opportunity to sneak his way to 4 colonies on his turn, giving him the win.
I think we all had a good time, and it was short enough to try again so we did.
In our second game, I player "The Loser". This race has the ability to reverse the winning conditions in a battle (i.e. a win result means "lose", a lose result means "win". Kozure was "The Oracle" which forces battling opponents to reveal their card before the Oracle reveals hers. Shemp was a race that grew in strength when it won a battle, and grew even more when it lost. Bharmer had a power which allowed him to keep a full hand at all times.
For whatever reason, we struggled on a couple occasions to figure out how certain powers interact. There was a situation where I, as the Loser, reversed the win conditions to a battle with Kozure, the Oracle. I reversed the win conditions but he only had a negotiate, so what happens then? We ruled that the negotiate card would normally lose and collect retribution, so if reversed he should win and collect retribution. Another example: If the Oracle has her super flare, which allows her to stop a combat and send the attacking aliens home, but when attacked she has no encounter cards left and should therefore draw a new hand. When I looked at the timing listed on the cards afterwatrds, it was clear that the hand needed to be discarded and re-shuffled (the artifact can only be played in the "resolution phase", which occurs after both players have chosen their cards).
The struggle to interpret cards led to more downtime for the other players. Also, we seemed to get more greedy because players were refusing any allies during most of the combats. As a result, it was substantially less fun than the first session.
I won by converting a combat in to negotiations and proposing a simple exchange of colonies with Kozure, who didn't notice it would win me the game (it was late and everyone needed to leave, so it was okay, right?).
If we can keep the game length down, get comfortable enough with the rules and interactions that sessions don't devolve into interpretation parties and ratchet up the negotiations and backstabbing, I think this could be a great game (that is a lot of "ifs", however). The powers really do have a major impact on the feel of the game, and negotiations are similarly affected. There isn't a large number of items to negotiate for other than allowing bases on planets, which is a touch disappointing. However, the impact and interaction of the race powers means that while in each individual game there may not be a lot of depth in deal making, the kinds of interaction, negotiation and backstabbing that are likely to take place are going to be fairly different from game to game. That's a good thing in my book.
It was fun. Looking forward to trying it again.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Excess vs. Restraint (Glory to Rome x2, In the Year of the Dragon)
Kozure hates having to pick games when it's just three players. This was one of those nights (It was just me, Kozure and Shemp).
Glory to Rome
Shemp hadn't particularly enjoyed this when he was introduced to him in October, so I can't imagine he approached this session with much enthusiasm. Luckily, with a bit of experience under his belt the game's interaction appeared to "click" this time and I think he became a fan.
Our first game saw Shemp attempt to build the forum and face the same fate that befell Kozure when he tried that many moons ago... Kozure and I collectively froze the supply of merchants and patrons in the pool. Unfortunately, he appeared to be in the lead in points as well, so we were a little stymied on the best way to steal the victory. He had a viscious combination going (I don't recall it exactly, but I believe it had to do with using the power of the client he was placing into his clientelle, whch activate half a dozen cards as well). I completed a few quick buildings, hid a bit of treasure in the vault and then completed the catacombs to end the game. I had focussed on getting rubble and wood into the vault, gambling that I'd get easy majorities since no one else would bother. Not only did that not happen, the 1 value material meant my haul there was particularly low. I came in last, while Shemp actually did win.
We played again, though this time I fared much better. This time it was I who built the killer combos (though I nearly didn't get the chance... Kozure nearly ended the game early while he had the lead. I did something one round before he was going to do it that prevented it from happening, but I don't remember what). I had a building, the gate, which allowed my unfinished marble buildings to use their function. Marble buildings are amongst the most powerful, so this is quite an advantage! I then started 2 important marble buildings: One that made my merchant clients into wilds (Ludus Magna), one that allowed me to play multiple cards out of my hand to "follow" the lead role multiple times (Palace). I also had a completed concrete building (The storeroom) which allowed all my clients to act as labourers if I wanted.
So, essentially, I was sweeping all the materials in the pool and then using my three craftsmen and my two wilds (the merchants) to build lots of stuff. Heck, just having those two wilds and being able to "think" every turn and still act twice was incredibly powerful. Every time I play this gam, I'm tempted to say that a different card is too powerful, and this time I feel that way about the gate (incomplete marble buildings still give their power). I imagine that we are just scratching the surface with the crazy combos... I would expect that experienced players set up some pretty ridiculous chains of events.
Anyway, I won.
In the Year of the Dragon
We *almost* played a third game of Glory to Rome, but Kozure elected to play this instead (ok, I suggested it). I followed a path I typically avoid: building up my number of palaces and trying to hold on to a large number of workers. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get the food I needed in time on two occasions and it really hurt my chances. Still, I did okay with the rest and I was keeping pace on the military track (unlike last game). With Shemp and Kozure being equally aggressive in military and VPs, it was a very competitive game to the very end. In the final tally, Shemp's large roster of buddhas gave him the lead over my large clientele. He won.
As an aside, Shemp purchased a dragon tile in the eighth month. I mentioned that it would only give him four points, but he purchased it anyway. You'll never guess how many points he beat me by...
(four)
Glory to Rome
Shemp hadn't particularly enjoyed this when he was introduced to him in October, so I can't imagine he approached this session with much enthusiasm. Luckily, with a bit of experience under his belt the game's interaction appeared to "click" this time and I think he became a fan.
Our first game saw Shemp attempt to build the forum and face the same fate that befell Kozure when he tried that many moons ago... Kozure and I collectively froze the supply of merchants and patrons in the pool. Unfortunately, he appeared to be in the lead in points as well, so we were a little stymied on the best way to steal the victory. He had a viscious combination going (I don't recall it exactly, but I believe it had to do with using the power of the client he was placing into his clientelle, whch activate half a dozen cards as well). I completed a few quick buildings, hid a bit of treasure in the vault and then completed the catacombs to end the game. I had focussed on getting rubble and wood into the vault, gambling that I'd get easy majorities since no one else would bother. Not only did that not happen, the 1 value material meant my haul there was particularly low. I came in last, while Shemp actually did win.
We played again, though this time I fared much better. This time it was I who built the killer combos (though I nearly didn't get the chance... Kozure nearly ended the game early while he had the lead. I did something one round before he was going to do it that prevented it from happening, but I don't remember what). I had a building, the gate, which allowed my unfinished marble buildings to use their function. Marble buildings are amongst the most powerful, so this is quite an advantage! I then started 2 important marble buildings: One that made my merchant clients into wilds (Ludus Magna), one that allowed me to play multiple cards out of my hand to "follow" the lead role multiple times (Palace). I also had a completed concrete building (The storeroom) which allowed all my clients to act as labourers if I wanted.
So, essentially, I was sweeping all the materials in the pool and then using my three craftsmen and my two wilds (the merchants) to build lots of stuff. Heck, just having those two wilds and being able to "think" every turn and still act twice was incredibly powerful. Every time I play this gam, I'm tempted to say that a different card is too powerful, and this time I feel that way about the gate (incomplete marble buildings still give their power). I imagine that we are just scratching the surface with the crazy combos... I would expect that experienced players set up some pretty ridiculous chains of events.
Anyway, I won.
In the Year of the Dragon
We *almost* played a third game of Glory to Rome, but Kozure elected to play this instead (ok, I suggested it). I followed a path I typically avoid: building up my number of palaces and trying to hold on to a large number of workers. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get the food I needed in time on two occasions and it really hurt my chances. Still, I did okay with the rest and I was keeping pace on the military track (unlike last game). With Shemp and Kozure being equally aggressive in military and VPs, it was a very competitive game to the very end. In the final tally, Shemp's large roster of buddhas gave him the lead over my large clientele. He won.
As an aside, Shemp purchased a dragon tile in the eighth month. I mentioned that it would only give him four points, but he purchased it anyway. You'll never guess how many points he beat me by...
(four)
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