What the **** do I care? I'm in Asia!

Truer words were rarely spoken. Last marked the debut of the monster epic crazy game, Sid Meier’s Civilization, the board game based on a video game inspired a board game. Still following? Good.

Civilization, or "Civ", as it is known to the terminally addicted, is a board game for up to 6 players. Although the back of the box says that it can be finished in 1-2 hours, that’s really only for the standard game and for experienced players at that. As we all know, standard games are for wusses! After two or three good tries at this game, I can pretty confidently say that this game will take a minimum of 6-7 hours with average players and the advanced rules.

The object of the game is no less than to create the most glorious civilization in the history of mankind, covering 6,000 years of human development, from the dawn of civilization at the end of the stone age until the first steps of man towards the colonization of another world. There are two different rulesets, standard and advanced, each using fairly different mechanics.

The game is played on a massive 36” x 47” board, using a veritable boatload of counters representing most of the military units you can imagine for a game of this scope from primitive swordsmen to modern machinegun infantry. The game plays out over four different ages – Ancient, Mediaeval, Gunpowder and Modern. Thrown in for extra spice is an array of City Improvements ranging from Ziggurats to the Internet (improves productivity my butt!), an assortment of randomized Civilization Markers (for resources and special events like plagues and barbarian hordes) and a technology tree that will be very familiar to players who wasted the better part of their young lives figuring out how to get Mechanized Infantry units faster than anyone else or how many superstructure modules to build.

To explain the rules is an epic in itself (though no so tough as many early SSI and AH games), but the general gist is that there are four phases in each turn: Purchase - where players buy new units, improve their cities and convert settlers into cities; Movement and Battles - in which players move their units about and wreak terrible miniature wars over the cardboard plains; Trade – which permits players to trade resources for special monopoly, unique resource and critical resource bonuses; and Production – allowing players to convert the hard work and sweat of their minions to gold. Technology is bought with cash during the Purchase phase, and the game moves to the next “Age” at the end of the phase in which the first technology of the new era is purchased. The advanced game has no less than four separate endgame conditions – final conquest, military victory, diplomatic victory or technological/space victory. Players receive victory points for wonders of the world constructed over the course of their civilization, populace size, and depending on the final endgame, points for military units or technologies.

Well, after a rules explanation of the advanced version at the beginning of the night and the usual lengthy set-up, we were finished eating and ready to play at 8:00 PM. We quickly discovered that ours was a resource poor world, and even things like a stretch of three wine producing regions on the west coast of North America were going to be fought over viciously. A number of factors lead to the usual situation of one player holding dominion over a particular area – in this case, Hapi in Central Asia, Tili in South Asia and Australia, Shemp in South America, Easy in North America and yours truly (Kozure) in Africa. A brief scrap in Central America lead to an ouster of Tili’s forces, leaving Shemp and Easy to scrap it out for California and the Mississippi. A few small skirmishes later, Easy’s early monetary income lead was erased. Shemp vaulted us into the Mediaeval age a few minutes before we closed up shop at 11 PM, with the game very close and all of the VP scores ranging from 10 to 15. We took digital pictures of the board so as to allow continuation next games night at Chez Kozure.

I really enjoy the epic scope and feel of this game, despite the relative complexity. The earnestness of the diplomacy and negotiations over territory and resources was remarkable, leading to Hapi’s immortal line in the title above. The combination of resource management, diplomacy and military competition make this game a real winner in my book, striking the right balance between the need for careful culture building and bold aggression. I’m looking forward to seeing how this game plays out.

What the @!?#!! do I care, I'm in Asia!

Last night, we played what has got to be the most excessive boardgame going: Civilization.
The gameboard, so huge that only the largest of tables could possibly accommodate it, sets the tone of the game. Everything is excessive. The theme (simulating the rise of civilization), the components (so many bits that it takes every player to keep track of them), the play time (+/- 8 hrs minimum).
Players take turns exploring the world, uncovering resources, founding settlements and develloping technologies and wonders of the world. Meanwhile, conflicts arise and politics emerge. Sounds complicated? It is, although probably not as much as it could have been. Clearly measures have been taken to keep the learning curve within reasonable limits, but a game for your parents this is not...
Our game last night included 5 players (Kozure, Luch and Tili had played before, while me and Shemp hadn't). At the beginning of the game, Kozure said he thought we might get through the first of four ages before the night was over, and he wound up being perfectly accurate (as the evening came to a close, we had just played our first round of the gunpowder age).
Things got off to a rocky start right away, as Shemp and I talked about truce dividing the North and South america amongts ourselves (respectively), but then immediately saw the whole thing go to hell. Shemp's first move was to expand into california, and my first move was to try to get it back so I could get a monopoly on wine. I succeeded, BUT AT WHAT COST?!!! Perceived as the leader, I had a vengeful Shemp and a deceitful Tili gunning to take me down. Many military units later, they did (boating technology "shrunk" the worlds considerably, allowing Alaska to be taken pretty easily by Tili as Shemp distracted me to the south). Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, minor skirmishes were occuring between Luch (who managed to corner most of the military market early on) and Tili and Kozure as that part of the world was slowly getting fully discovered (oh, and there is that potentially explosive build up of military might at the European/ African border... but so far peace has prevailed). As it stands, the main characteristics of this session would be: Kozure has a problem with barbarians, Tili has a problem with the plague, Shemp has a problem with me and the board has a problem producing actual resources (ours is a barren earth). Luch's game, so far, seems to be going slow and steady (in fact, when asked to comment on the state of one of the skirmishes elsewhere in the world, he replied "What the @!?#!! do I care, I'm in Asia!"... the title of this week's blog. For the evening, Kozure was ahead... with my poor self pulling up the rear.

Personal comments on the game: To me, the game is fun but feels a little like an expanded and protracted version of RISK. This may be due to the scarcity of resources in our game, forcing people to fight amongst themselves to get anything going. The game can slow down with new players, like me, trying to reference all the inventions/ wonders of the world and improvements that are available for purchase (and a couple of really long negotiations didn't help, either!). This problem will probbaly diminish with every new game, but at 8-10hrs a pop, that could take a while!

Rating: A provisional 7

The problem with naming your ship "Revenge" is...

...that it implies you will lose the first fight.

This Wednesday was Pirate's Cove, a game of featuring pirates, plunder and players trying really hard to think of other words than "Yaaar", and "Scurvy" to help them sound in character.

Simple game in concept: 5 outer Islands (where treasure, fame and fortune can be found), an inner island where treasure can be buried and another where defeated pirates go to lick their wounds. Every turn each player secretely determines which island they will try to plunder, and if more than one player pick the same place combat occurs.

Add to this a roving legendary pirate, parrots, upgrades to ship and crew, and you have an excellent Pirate game!

I have to admit that going in I was starting to think that Days of Wonder games where largely style over substance affairs ("Ticket to Ride" was fun, but not fantastic, and I wasn't crazy about "Mystery of the Abbey"). I was happily proven wrong with this one. Pirat'e Cove is FUN. The theme is captured very well, everyone is involved at all times and it's not very long. I would say that it may be a little complicated, but not so much that most people wouldn't catch on (The game with all the variants we added, however, is a different story).

We played three games, and the last one included several variants that Kozure had found online and others that he invented himself. The first game didn't feel bogged down by learning the rules. It picked up quickly, and I had the good fortune of not getting in too many people's way (and soundly defeating Shemp a few times) and winning.

The next game, however, didn't go so well. I spent nearly the entire game fighting Luch over cannons... and ALWAYS losing. I came in last, and Shemp won handily.

The last game included many variants (ships could get boarded, duelling rules were introduced and combat could happen at treasure island). IT was quite a bloody game, with my ship getting torn to pieces and boarded quite early by Luch (my nemesis for the evening, it seemed). He took my substantial hoard of treasure and money, and I was left plotting revenge. When I got my chance, I ganged up with the Royal Navy to attack/board Luch. Ultimately, I miscalculated and killed of the army myself and Luch sent me packing once more. Later, I lost a psitol duel with Shemp! Meanwhile, kozure seemed to be the leader with a strong ship and much fame. I think he suffered quite a bit of "Kill the Leader" from the rest of us and was beaten down. In the end, it was a very tight game but Luch won by a point.

My one problem: I feel that the game rewards those who avoid conflict a bit too much. IT seemed like most of the time, the winner was the one who snuck past everyone. This is compounded by the fact that hurt players are the easiest to target (because you pretty much know they will head to the island which will heal there lowest stat), and that they are the most attractive targets since they are easy to beat. I wonder whether a rule which allowed pirates out from the cove a turn where no combat could occur, or something like that, could alleviate the problem. The rule which allows defeated pirates to draw cards helps a lot, however. Maybe the answer is simply to draw one extra card. Another tactic would be to offer fame points according to the power of the player you fought (if the defeated pirate started the fight with a stat on the 1st or 2nd space=0 fame, 3rd or 4th=1 fame, 5th or 6th=2 fame, etc).

I also think that players with cards like the parrots, etc should be allowed to replace them with another by playing the new card and discarding the old.

Still, small quibbles. Great game.

Rating:8

Yaaarrrrrr!

Pirate Games this Wednesday, loosely interpreted. Kozure, you know what you need to do. Easy - bring Epic Duels, and Tigris and Euphrates, if you would.

Yaaarrrrr!

-The Cap'n

W games!

Electoral themed goodness - G.W. Bush's favourite games are revealed! Hopefully he'll have plenty more time to play them in 2005. I'm just surprised that Misunderestimate wasn't included.

I am Shemp, and I approve this message.

Thx to Easy for the heads-up.

The Second Last Thing You Want is Another Big Mouthful of Nerve Puppet

So, last night, again with the Duel of Ages - Kozure proposed a few rules variations, based on our discussions of the last time we played DoA.

The variant rules we used were thus:

We will play Duel of Ages with four platters, all domes, the Lith Strategica key, all labyrinth keys but none of the expansion adventure keys. There will be six characters per player. Characters will be assigned randomly, but each will begin the game armed with a weapon that is suitable for the character by consent of all players. Each character will also begin the game with one piece of equipment suitable for the character (mount, armour, equipment). Any disagreement over whether a piece of equipment or weapon is suitable for a character will be resolved by die roll. Each team has one single-use "veto" to veto any piece of equipment or weapon which they deem imbalancing. As this game may become deadly, if any player is reduced to two characters or less, a replacement character will be chosen randomly (also with starting equipment as above) will spawn in during the reinforcement round in the turn FOLLOWING the death of the fourth character to be killed. In this way, no player will ever be reduced to less than two characters.

Piles of equipment will be shuffled, but within their category (weapon, mount, armour or "other"). When drawing cards as a reward from the labyrinths, characters may draw from any of the four piles indicated.

Teams were KozureEasy vs. Shemp?????, and the fact that characters started out appropriately equipped infused the game with bloody mayhem, right off the starter's pistol. The biggest effect of our rule changes was to create a large number of op-fires, which resulted in injured or dead characters, which in turn created an impetus towards further combat, trying to even the number of players and deny the other team a point. (A very centralised style of platter and key placement also contributed to the mass mayhem.) The black team (S?)'s Wilder and Princess Sunglow were offed almost immediately, as were Suva and Frostdancer of the white team (KE). Further problems were created by a vast number of pets running around - the Hawk, Crawler, Gryffalcon, Black Bear, and Muffin all made it into play.

Another effect was that labyrinth challenges had less value, since characters were already equipped, and otherwise occupied trying to kill each other. The first two hours of play saw only one successful challenge occur! Things picked up a bit after the number of characters thinned out a bit, but the poor rolling of the black team doomed it to a 4-1 loss, in a match that was closer than the score makes it appear.

Awards:

MVP (tie): Sir Gawain, on a horse, wearing kevlar, with the M-60 and Private Sanchez, in a frilly cape, with spines, both for the winning white team.

LVP: Adigan the Mouse accomplished NOTHING. At least Jolie took a potshot at Dr. Hume and unleashed Muffin.

MAP:(Most Annoying Player). Likely the Shifter, with an accellerator tube, who just wouldn't die, and ended up getting to make 24 (!) improvement rolls over the course of the game - becoming quite tough in the process.

Survived (White): Dr. Hume, Dr. Memnar, Smoke, Sir Gawain, Whip Vypyr, Sterling Jack, Ghengis Khan and Gregory.

Survived (Black): Jedediah Smith, the Nerve Puppet, Corporal Janus, Adigan the Mouse, Jolie La Ravissant, Shifter, and Rider-of-Comets.

Dead (White): Suva of Orion, Private Sanchez, Marcus Aurus, and Frostdancer.

Dead (Black): Wilder, Princess Sunglow, Thump, Homer Morgan, and Jade the Unicorn.

The Last Thing You Want is a Big Mouthful of Nerve Puppet

Last night we had a big ol' game of Duel of Ages. It had been a while (easy to tell by how often we had to refer to the rules), but it was a good game none the less.
4 hours
4 platters
10 characters per side
all challenges in play

It was Easy+????? vs Shemp and Kozure.

Where to begin?

I was surprised that even with this many characters, and this much time, that none of the special keys where finished. The Royal Tournament, always popular, was nearly won by both sides at various times. The rest, however, barely passed their 2nd to 3rd spaces. Still, characters had unusually good luck acquiring weapons properly suited to them (Bill Cody got a Varmint Rifle, which was eventually passed on to Kidd, Redlegs got a pretty lethal spear, Dr. Penopolis and the bike to compensate for his slow move, etc). By contrast, all characters had unusually BAD luck completing challenges (a black challenge survived multiple attempts, as did a few blues). Not surprisingly, it was also the night of highly improbable rolls (Kozure rolled 3 12s when attacking, losing a powerful weapon every time. 36x36x36=46,656. Sheesh!) ????? missed almost all of his targets by 1. Whenever the Whyp Vypyr attacked the Martians, they each rolled 10 and missed.) Lastly, it ws the night of the Nerve Puppet and Crack-Whore attacking the Bengal Tiger. A fight which seemed to go on for quite some time, but produced little results...

It was a tight game the entire time, but in the end our team (Easy+????) won 3 to 1 (I think).

MVP: Ygunna Gecha. With her poisonous fingernails, she knocked out a few opponents, and placed fear in the rest.

LVP: CRACK-WHORE (Kraator). Coulda, shoulda, woulda. This guy sure tried to beat up a lot of folks, but never really did. I think the nerve puppet did more damage.

MAP:(Most Annoying Player). 3U. Of course. Annoying.

MSPP (Most surprisingly Powerful Player) Dr. Pennopolis, or Dr. Panopticon as Shemp called him. Not fearsome, exactly, but very powerful with white idea,+2 on all adventures and various other special abilities. Slow, and not too strong, but still maybe unbalanced.

Enhanced (?) Navigation

All - after an offhand comment of Kozure's about being unable to find the entry on a certain game session, I was inspired. Please notice the results of this inspiration, over in the sidebar to the left. I've moved "Links" to the top of the page, and added a new "Navigate by Game" section immediately below that. Games are listed alphabetically, and all archived session reports are included, through the end of August. I'll try and keep the list maintained and (somewhat) up to date.

Let me know what you think - useful? not? something else?

Also, new suggested links are always welcome - would throwing one for Board Game Geek be beneficial?

Talk to me.

Land Ownership in the Efficient German Style

Well the games of choice this week were Löwenherz and Puerto Rico. ????? had bought Löwenherz after being impressed with Domaine. Löwenherz, or “Lionheart” when translated from the German, is essentially an earlier version of Domaine. The principal differences are that the number of land tiles is cut down by three from nine to six in Löwenherz, and the turn mechanic is bid-based, rather than simple draw-or-play. The elder game also uses a different method for scoring areas, and adds “treasure” and “parchment” cards which are good for extra gold and end of game scoring respectively.

Due to its reduced size, Löwenherz feels much more “cramped” by comparison – but as a consequence, domains come into contact with each other quickly. As a result of this, knights, alliances and desertion/traitor cards become important much earlier in the game.

The bidding mechanic is interesting, and lends a social/negotiation aspect to the game which is largely absent from Domaine. Of course, negotiation and social aspects rely very heavily upon the make-up of the gaming group, which is why I imagine it was removed from the revised Domaine. Simply stated, each turn, an action card is turned over which has three actions listed on it. Each player bids for one of the three options with a special bidding card. Since there are only three options, two or more players can compete for the action in a “power trail”, essentially a negotiation of how much one player will pay the other to perform the action; if neither can come to an agreement, or three or more players bid for the same action, there is a “duel” – players secretly bid gold or treasure for the card and the highest bid wins, with the rest keeping their money.

The mediaeval tapestry look of the game board is appealing, but overall the newer Domaine wins in the looks department. A few other minor tweaks (cards for money, altered silver mine rules), combined with the major changes mentioned above makes Löwenherz significantly different from Domaine as to not be simply a “variant”. They play differently, with a few similar mechanics.

Easy won the match easily with a devastating combination of really knight-heavy domains and shrewd bargaining. My attempt at a massive early land grab was subsequently smacked down by a surgical expansion which effectively cut the entire domain in a 1/6 to 5 /6 portion, leaving me with the smallest bit.

As a side note, I thought it was amusing that Löwenherz features a king who is dying (rather than in Domaine, which features a king who is returning from a far-away land) since Richard the Lionhearted of England was famous for being an absentee king and having to deal with squabbling nobles and a prince brother when he returned.

Our second and third games of the night were Puerto Rico, an old favourite which we haven’t played a lot recently. As we’ve become more familiar with mechanics of other German games, we’ve been carefully re-reading and clarifying previous rules, especially the Captain phase shipping rules, which we have played incorrectly previously. Given our collective brainfreeze on the first game of Domaine last week, this is a very good thing.

We were also careful to watch the timing of certain actions, especially with the Settler phase and haciendas, which can make for some confusion, especially with ?????.

The first game felt oddly rushed for some reason, with no one managing to get large buildings completed in time for some reason. Both money and goods seemed in short supply, so much as to elicit a careful recount of components before proceeding. Even colonists were recounted, since the game seemed to be over before anyone was ready. We had no one to blame, though – we had the correct number of everything.

I believe a major factor in the rapid depletion of colonist reserves was the presence of multiple hospices, as well as haciendas, the combination of which can spell a very quick draw from the pool. There also seemed to be more concentration on erecting buildings which had long-term pay-off, rather than actual production buildings. Other than that, none of us could quite account for the odd feeling of our first game.

In the end, Shemp and I tied for first place, with exactly the same amount of victory points and combined goods and doubloons. – 23 victory points and about 12 combined points of goods and doubloons.

The second game felt much more right, with people managing to develop strategies well (confusing Shemp at the same time) with two people building large buildings before Easy brought the boom down by grabbing the Mayor card.

It was a good thing too, because Shemp looked to be pulling away from everyone with not only a harbour and plenty of goods to ship for VP, but also the doubloons to pick up the Custom House in the next building phase. Shemp carried the day with 47 VP, I came in second with 44, and Easy and Hapi brought up the rear with scores that I can’t remember, but were relatively close.

An enjoyable evening, with three solid games (well, two solid games and one shaky one) and some tight races. Also, I tied for first in Puerto Rico for the first time since the first or second time I played. Yay me! I'm usually the bridesmaid for Puerto Rico. One day, I will win, my precious, one day...

My Castle is My Domain(e)

Note: When I wrote this, there was no evidence of Easy's blog. I pressed publish, and the Blogger website went into paroxyms of refreshing the same page over and over again. When it was finished, I saw my log posted. When I came back, I noted my blog was missing and now Easy's with a much earlier publish time, was present. I have no idea what happened. Here's my blog, for the record.

Well, what’s a games night without a theme? Well, a themeless games night, but beyond that, it’s boring and uninspired. Fortunately, we had Shemp to lend a thought to “Mediaeval” games night. The dinner lasagne didn’t quite fit in, but we had “hearty cheese fritos” to help out.

The night opened with Castle, the game aforementioned. With four players, the gameplay tilts over from the tactical side of things to a little more random in nature. Easy caught on quickly, but not quickly enough to deny Shemp the win.

We then switched to Domaine, which I thought had been reviewed before, but I can’t currently find any mention in our blog. Domaine is a game of expansion and territory enclosure, by one of our favourite game designers, Klaus Teuber. It allows two to four players, with slight modifications for two player play, and the theme is that you are lesser royalty (dukes or counts or what-have-you) trying to divide up the spoils of a kingdom before the king returns from a long journey. This theme makes a lot less sense than its original Germanic predecessor, Lowenherz, where they’re doing the dividing while the king is dying. That’s political correctness for you, I guess.

The board is a well drawn map of what looks like a fantasy kingdom – nine moveable large cardboard squares, arranged into a square with the castle at the centre – with each of the nine squares being divided into around eight to ten by eight to ten (can’t remember the exact number) 2 cm grid by light black lines. Terrain of plain, forest, mines (diamond, bronze, silver and gold), towns and a castle is indicated clearly and with fair quality.

The mechanic is very simple – each player executes one of two actions per turn – play a card by paying gold for it, which allows you to either: 1) erect walls to enclose a “domain”, 2) expand already enclosed domains, 3) place knights which protect your own domain and allow you to expand into others, 4) create alliances which stops either domain from expanding into each other, or 5) cause knights from other domains to “defect” into yours.

A second possible action is to sell a card to the chancery – a temporary holding area - for the second (smaller) value printed on the card – one of only two ways to gain money.

After performing one of the two actions, the player then draws from either the chancery or the draw pile to replenish his or her hand.

Players score points by enclosing forest, towns and the castle (1, 3 and 5 points). Additionally, players can supplement their income by enclosing mines, each type providing one gold piece at the beginning of a turn each. Enclosing three of one type of mine scores 5 points.

Victory is gained by points – either by reaching a maximum dictated by the number of players, or by having the most points when all possible cards have been played. Extra money also counts for points – the player with the most scores 5, the second wealthiest scores 3.

For our first game of Domaine, we misremembered (Bushism) some of the rules, forgetting proper rules for placement of knights and the very important rule of only taking one action per turn. Fortunately, this had the effect of speeding up the game.

I got pretty badly boxed in the first game, but wasn’t doing too badly when ????? leapt ahead into the lead for the win.

The second game, we corrected our misrememberings of the rules and played correctly. I was doing better this time around, but Easy took advantage of a really easy massive land grab late in the game and sealed the win. Domaine is interesting for the need to not only grow your own earnings, but also pay attention and smack down other players who might sneak their way into a massive inheritance.

This technique is henceforth christened “snuclear” or “snuculear” tactics, after Easy and Shemp’s strange, giddy exchange. “Snuclear” apparently involves really, really sneaky tactics, to the point of being nuclear sneaky. Apparently.

The evening was ended with a round of Castle, which started out with a huge siege engine vs. soldier battle and ended with a lot of people trying to kill-the-leader Easy, which didn’t help us in the end. Easy took us down, leaving the rest of us just steps from playing out.