Last year, in early January, I talked about my favorite games of 2006. I'm sure I'll be doing it again for 2007, but i'll wait until the year is actually over. I mention it only because this week we played one of the two I had decided were my faves for that year, Antike, and I realized (with some sheepishness, that it was the first time since october 2006! (the other, Railroad Tycoon) hasn't been played since Dec. 2006). Do we have too many games if our FAVORITES from last year only get a single play?!!! Hmmm.
Anyway, Antike was up first. Still quite engaging for a chess-like civ builder. Turns are ridiculously snappy, and everything flows very well. I started in Italy, Shemp in the north and Luch in the east. As the early turns were devoted to expansion, I expanded slightly northward but concentrated on getting the triremes out. Luch also went north, leaving behind him an expanse of virgin territory (which he continued to plunder until the end of the game). This left Shemp in a tight spot because he was really forced to deal with possible conflict on two fronts early on. I drew first blood when I attacked Shemp about 2/3rds of the way through the game. That success netted me 2 cards (14th trireme and 15th city). A few more battles ensued, and I managed to win the game by snatching the last unclaimed advancement right from under Shemp's nose.
Next was two games of RA. The sun god was in a pissy mood that night, though. The tiles came out in strange combinations and any player who tried to go long was destined to fail. I entered the 3rd age of our first game with only the 10 points I started with... but fortune smiled on me and I took the game on a massive haul of buildings. In our second game, Luch found himself using only 1 or 2 of his 4 sun tiles in 2 consecutive eras...
We ended with Palazzo. This was a game on the list of "games which were introduced during Shemp's absence", so after a brief explanation we started (Shemp's eyes were glazed over, as everyone's eyes tend to glaze over when explaining the rules to this one. Seriously, for such a simple game the rules manage to sound both complicated and random no matter how hard I try). Shemp won by a large margin, due to two five story/ single material buildings. It seemed to be well received, though I personally am not sure that I like it very much.
Not sure if we'll have another session before the New Year. If not, have a happy holiday!
Monday, December 24, 2007
Thursday, December 06, 2007
It's broke, let' fix it (Conquest of the Empire)
... or 'another evening of deviance'
Conquest of the Empire is a game I’ve always had mixed feelings about. It’s close to being very interesting, it’s sometimes fun, but it’s got problems. In May, after the last time we played it, I started thinking about possible variants which might help the game work a bit better. I was therefore pretty happy when Luch decided to pick it this week, as it gave us the chance to try some of these ‘fixes’.
The variants:
1) Moving:
Problem: Movement is wonky. Triremes are not as useful as they could be due to the fact that units can move as far as they want unless they are blocked. In my mind, the blocking itself was also problematic… a single unit stopping a large army felt cheap to me.
Variant: Units are limited to moving 5 spaces. Units encountering resistance must leave behind one unit per enemy crossed.
Result: This change had virtually no impact on the game. Further, blocking became nearly impossible, so no one bothered.
Thoughts: On one hand, this is more a philosophical problem than a game problem, so abandoning might be in order. If I were to pursue it, however, forcing players to leave behind 2 or 3 units per enemy crossed might strike a good balance between effective defense that isn’t needlessly paralysing. Another thought that crossed my mind is that an ‘overrun’ rule could be implemented which allows movement to continue if any combat along the way takes only 1 round to resolve.
2) Differentiation of Units:
Problem: Units aren’t differentiated enough. The most effective unit is the cheapest, and the others have varying cost but equal contributions to the game.
Variant: I proposed that 6 soldiers or 3 cavalry in excess of an opponent’s forces in a region could apply ‘intimidation’ to cancel an influence token during scoring. I also proposed that the presence of a catapult in a battle give a player an additional die (max 1 additional die regardless of the number of catapults).
Result: We entirely forgot to apply the intimidation rule, which suggests to me that it’s too fiddly in practice. I liked the catapult rule (and it did ensure that most people tried to have one in the mix whenever possible), but others found it to be too powerful.
Thoughts: Maybe it’s fine the way it is. In our next game, we should play without the catapult rule and pay attention to how people purchase units.
3) Getting more done in fewer actions:
Problem: The number of steps required to move an army, attack and then convert influence tokens can cause the game to stagnate for players, particularly in the later rounds when it’s obvious there aren’t enough moves left to accomplish anything.
Variant: Immediately at the end of winning a battle, a player has the choice to convert 1 (or 2 if a ceasar is present) influence tokens at 30 talents each.
Result: I really liked this change. I think the others did too.
Thoughts. This element had an impact on the game, and added some interesting decisions. I’d say this one’s a keeper.
4) Fixing the political system:
Problem: The political system doesn’t quite work. It doesn’t feel well integrated and isn’t used very much due to it’s high cost and unreliability of the results.
Variant: This was the biggest change. Players didn’t start with any political cards. The political cards themselves were separated from the ‘choose/purchase a card’ action. As an action, a player could choose a political action card and call any face up vote. The player was free to spread the rewards for passing the vote amongst several players or to keep it for him/herself (ex: win 40 talents could become ‘I propose that I receive 20 talents, that Mike receive 10 and Luc receive 10). Once the terms were set, all players secretely committed vote cards (which they would have aquired through the normal ‘choose/purchase a card’ action) and declared ‘yea’ or ‘nay’. All committed votes by all parties are spent. If the vote passes with a majority, the effect happens as proposed. The political action card was then considered ‘used’ and placed face down until the next campaign season.
Verdict: This change is a step in the right direction, but still didn’t work very well. In the first campaign season it worked, and several interesting proposals were made. Interest in choosing vote cards was higher than it used to be. However, in subsequent seasons, all vote cards from the first season were spent, and so players were frequently taking a vote card as their first action and then calling a vote through a political card as their second action, conscious of the fact that no one had any cards left to counter.
Thoughts: Players simply need more vote cards to make this work. We should probably go back to starting with some vote cards, and should probably receive a number throughout the game. It would be interesting to weave into the game a way to earn automatic votes. For example, let’s say that players started with 4 vote cards (at random). Then, certain regions could be designated as politically important (some being victory point generating regions, and others not). Control of these regions would yield an automatic vote (or random vote card) in any political action. This would probably require the creation of a new token which would indicate political control, to distinguish itself from the influence tokens.
Session:
The random setup dealt a harsh blow to Kozure (hmmm, another variant needed? Choosing initial locations, perhaps?) but gave the rest of us reasonably even territories. Shemp and I were concentrated around Italia, Luch and Bharmer more to the south and east. Kozure had single regions spread throughout the map, which would prove to be difficult to defend.
Shemp and I happily shared first place in Italia before long, and were otherwise getting fairly prosperous through our various acquisitions. Bharmer was winning despite his absence in Rome, largely because he was going unopposed in several 15 point regions (Egyptus, etc). Luch started getting hammered early and often.
As the game took it’s course, Bharmer’s terrible luck in battle and constant spats vs Luch sent his empire crumbling. Kozure made a remarkable comeback in Asia (crushing Bharmer's last substantial presence)and Shemp grabbed first place in Italia. In a very shrewd move, Shemp spent enormous amounts of money to make sure he was allied with me and Kozure in the last season. This meant there was literally nothing any of the players with remaining large armies could do to unseat him from his lead.
When the dust settled, I had gathered enough influence from the remnants of Luch and Bharmer to help me catch up to Shemp`s lead... along with a quick 15 point grab through the Hail Ceasar political card. The two of us were tied. Only, we weren’t, because I realized that I’d been counting my points for two seasons as though I still had the tie for first in Italia. Ooops. Close second for me, then.
(I looked into the tiebreaker rule, and it goes to the player with the most influence chits on the board. That would have been me. Grrr.)
Anyway, Conquest of the Empire remains perplexing for me. It is occasionally quite fun… shows moments of brilliance… but also engenders boredom, frustration and feels unpolished. Downtime is a factor (honestly, it doesn’t bother me much in this game, but others in the group took issue). There is a weird problem which results in too many choices to act quickly, but not enough choices to have something interesting to do at all times.
Finally, although I’m not opposed to long games, they are much more pleasant when you feel like you can contribute until the end. The combination of very few moves in the game, the need to make several moves in sequence to achieve a result and long play time means that you often can foresee several turns ahead where you want to go and you just have to wait until you get there. Or, worse, that you know you don’t have enough time to actually do anything, so you just wait for the game to be over (which can still be an hour away).
Other games played in this genre: Risk, Vinci, War of Thrones, Nexus Ops (sort of similar), Sid Meier’s Civilization. Looking to try: Mare Nostrum. Some of these are bad. Others are good, but either have a more limited scope than CotE, or a different focus altogether.
With it’s combination of ameritrash theme/ bits and some euro sensibilities, it’s inclusion of combat, area control, politics and event cards, Conquest should be an amazing game. It’s a shame it will take continued exploration with variants to make it great (if it ever gets there).
edit: I reread our past blog entries on this game and I'm a little fascinated at the change in my perspective. At first, I really liked the game despite it's faults. Since our last playing, I seem to have transformed those faults into the guiding impression of the it in my mind. The sessions reports describe games that were far more dynamic than this last session. Did the variants encourage a more static game? (we pretty much sat and held the territory we started with for most of the game, with the exception of Kozure near the end). Did the added focus on the political aspect take so many moves away from the conquest that fewer things got accomplished? Either way, it seems like it was an odd convergence of a session which matched the flaws I had convinced myself the game had. Something to think about.
Conquest of the Empire is a game I’ve always had mixed feelings about. It’s close to being very interesting, it’s sometimes fun, but it’s got problems. In May, after the last time we played it, I started thinking about possible variants which might help the game work a bit better. I was therefore pretty happy when Luch decided to pick it this week, as it gave us the chance to try some of these ‘fixes’.
The variants:
1) Moving:
Problem: Movement is wonky. Triremes are not as useful as they could be due to the fact that units can move as far as they want unless they are blocked. In my mind, the blocking itself was also problematic… a single unit stopping a large army felt cheap to me.
Variant: Units are limited to moving 5 spaces. Units encountering resistance must leave behind one unit per enemy crossed.
Result: This change had virtually no impact on the game. Further, blocking became nearly impossible, so no one bothered.
Thoughts: On one hand, this is more a philosophical problem than a game problem, so abandoning might be in order. If I were to pursue it, however, forcing players to leave behind 2 or 3 units per enemy crossed might strike a good balance between effective defense that isn’t needlessly paralysing. Another thought that crossed my mind is that an ‘overrun’ rule could be implemented which allows movement to continue if any combat along the way takes only 1 round to resolve.
2) Differentiation of Units:
Problem: Units aren’t differentiated enough. The most effective unit is the cheapest, and the others have varying cost but equal contributions to the game.
Variant: I proposed that 6 soldiers or 3 cavalry in excess of an opponent’s forces in a region could apply ‘intimidation’ to cancel an influence token during scoring. I also proposed that the presence of a catapult in a battle give a player an additional die (max 1 additional die regardless of the number of catapults).
Result: We entirely forgot to apply the intimidation rule, which suggests to me that it’s too fiddly in practice. I liked the catapult rule (and it did ensure that most people tried to have one in the mix whenever possible), but others found it to be too powerful.
Thoughts: Maybe it’s fine the way it is. In our next game, we should play without the catapult rule and pay attention to how people purchase units.
3) Getting more done in fewer actions:
Problem: The number of steps required to move an army, attack and then convert influence tokens can cause the game to stagnate for players, particularly in the later rounds when it’s obvious there aren’t enough moves left to accomplish anything.
Variant: Immediately at the end of winning a battle, a player has the choice to convert 1 (or 2 if a ceasar is present) influence tokens at 30 talents each.
Result: I really liked this change. I think the others did too.
Thoughts. This element had an impact on the game, and added some interesting decisions. I’d say this one’s a keeper.
4) Fixing the political system:
Problem: The political system doesn’t quite work. It doesn’t feel well integrated and isn’t used very much due to it’s high cost and unreliability of the results.
Variant: This was the biggest change. Players didn’t start with any political cards. The political cards themselves were separated from the ‘choose/purchase a card’ action. As an action, a player could choose a political action card and call any face up vote. The player was free to spread the rewards for passing the vote amongst several players or to keep it for him/herself (ex: win 40 talents could become ‘I propose that I receive 20 talents, that Mike receive 10 and Luc receive 10). Once the terms were set, all players secretely committed vote cards (which they would have aquired through the normal ‘choose/purchase a card’ action) and declared ‘yea’ or ‘nay’. All committed votes by all parties are spent. If the vote passes with a majority, the effect happens as proposed. The political action card was then considered ‘used’ and placed face down until the next campaign season.
Verdict: This change is a step in the right direction, but still didn’t work very well. In the first campaign season it worked, and several interesting proposals were made. Interest in choosing vote cards was higher than it used to be. However, in subsequent seasons, all vote cards from the first season were spent, and so players were frequently taking a vote card as their first action and then calling a vote through a political card as their second action, conscious of the fact that no one had any cards left to counter.
Thoughts: Players simply need more vote cards to make this work. We should probably go back to starting with some vote cards, and should probably receive a number throughout the game. It would be interesting to weave into the game a way to earn automatic votes. For example, let’s say that players started with 4 vote cards (at random). Then, certain regions could be designated as politically important (some being victory point generating regions, and others not). Control of these regions would yield an automatic vote (or random vote card) in any political action. This would probably require the creation of a new token which would indicate political control, to distinguish itself from the influence tokens.
Session:
The random setup dealt a harsh blow to Kozure (hmmm, another variant needed? Choosing initial locations, perhaps?) but gave the rest of us reasonably even territories. Shemp and I were concentrated around Italia, Luch and Bharmer more to the south and east. Kozure had single regions spread throughout the map, which would prove to be difficult to defend.
Shemp and I happily shared first place in Italia before long, and were otherwise getting fairly prosperous through our various acquisitions. Bharmer was winning despite his absence in Rome, largely because he was going unopposed in several 15 point regions (Egyptus, etc). Luch started getting hammered early and often.
As the game took it’s course, Bharmer’s terrible luck in battle and constant spats vs Luch sent his empire crumbling. Kozure made a remarkable comeback in Asia (crushing Bharmer's last substantial presence)and Shemp grabbed first place in Italia. In a very shrewd move, Shemp spent enormous amounts of money to make sure he was allied with me and Kozure in the last season. This meant there was literally nothing any of the players with remaining large armies could do to unseat him from his lead.
When the dust settled, I had gathered enough influence from the remnants of Luch and Bharmer to help me catch up to Shemp`s lead... along with a quick 15 point grab through the Hail Ceasar political card. The two of us were tied. Only, we weren’t, because I realized that I’d been counting my points for two seasons as though I still had the tie for first in Italia. Ooops. Close second for me, then.
(I looked into the tiebreaker rule, and it goes to the player with the most influence chits on the board. That would have been me. Grrr.)
Anyway, Conquest of the Empire remains perplexing for me. It is occasionally quite fun… shows moments of brilliance… but also engenders boredom, frustration and feels unpolished. Downtime is a factor (honestly, it doesn’t bother me much in this game, but others in the group took issue). There is a weird problem which results in too many choices to act quickly, but not enough choices to have something interesting to do at all times.
Finally, although I’m not opposed to long games, they are much more pleasant when you feel like you can contribute until the end. The combination of very few moves in the game, the need to make several moves in sequence to achieve a result and long play time means that you often can foresee several turns ahead where you want to go and you just have to wait until you get there. Or, worse, that you know you don’t have enough time to actually do anything, so you just wait for the game to be over (which can still be an hour away).
Other games played in this genre: Risk, Vinci, War of Thrones, Nexus Ops (sort of similar), Sid Meier’s Civilization. Looking to try: Mare Nostrum. Some of these are bad. Others are good, but either have a more limited scope than CotE, or a different focus altogether.
With it’s combination of ameritrash theme/ bits and some euro sensibilities, it’s inclusion of combat, area control, politics and event cards, Conquest should be an amazing game. It’s a shame it will take continued exploration with variants to make it great (if it ever gets there).
edit: I reread our past blog entries on this game and I'm a little fascinated at the change in my perspective. At first, I really liked the game despite it's faults. Since our last playing, I seem to have transformed those faults into the guiding impression of the it in my mind. The sessions reports describe games that were far more dynamic than this last session. Did the variants encourage a more static game? (we pretty much sat and held the territory we started with for most of the game, with the exception of Kozure near the end). Did the added focus on the political aspect take so many moves away from the conquest that fewer things got accomplished? Either way, it seems like it was an odd convergence of a session which matched the flaws I had convinced myself the game had. Something to think about.
Friday, November 30, 2007
I'll be waiting... with a gun and a pack of sandwiches (Flying colours, Way Out West)
Lots of gunfire this evening.
Luch, Kozure and I opened with Flying Colours, a naval war game from GMT. We played an introductory scenario which boils down the conflict to a simple 2 vs 1 fight. Luch and I teamed up as the British and Kozure played the lone (but much larger) french ship. It's a basic hex and counter war game, played on a large paper map of the ocean. Rules, for our scenario at least, were quite simple for a wargame. Movement factors in wind direction in a simple way, and other than that the rest of the rules involved combat (choosing to shoot the hull or the sails, arc of fire restrictions, dice result tables, etc). In our brief session, Luch and I sped along to the back of Kozure's ship. Along the way, I took a shot just as I was rounding the bend and started a fire onboard his ship. Then, I took a perfect shot right down the length of his hull and cleared the way for Luch to do the same. We both rolled high, and the French sunk like rocks.
We got pretty lucky, and I'd say the scenario felt pretty heavily weighted in our favour (Kozure confirmed this later). Still, it seemed like the system would be fun enough to play a more fleshed out scenario next time.
Next, we played Way Out West. JayWowzer and Shemp had arrived. I think it's the first time we've played with five.
Full disclosure: I always feel lost when I play this game. Although eurogames frequently make you feel like there are all sorts of things you'd like to do, and very few actions to do them, WoW takes is a few steps further and I never feel like I'm being effective. In fact, I was convinced that I'd never even come close to winning before (though, apparently I won our last game. I'll have to re-read that post to remember it).
True to form, the game started and I was perpetually broke, never in possession of the store or hotel where it was usefull (or the wagon, for that matter). I decided to build the jail everywhere, and see if I could take other buildings over later on. I also decided I'd try to start fights when the odds were approximately 3 to 4 against me (since the weaker side shoots first, it seems like an advantage to go in weaker). Whether it's an ill advised plan to start with, or luck just wasn't on my side, all I can say is I tried to put that plan in action on 2 occasions in Abalene and both times I lost everything. I was down to 1 cowboy on the board (in Kansas) and it was protecting the last 4 cows I had on the board. I thought I was sunk. Then, something funny happened... everybody started fighting each other around me and THEY lost everything. My cows in Kansas city stayed safe (giving me the majority) and Dodge City went from raging metropolis to ghost town. I had since placed 2 cowboys there and had my pick of the buildings to take over. Having gained the majority (through buildings, I still had no cows outside of Abalene) I scored big at the endgame and won.
On my ride home, I was thinking about how my win was mostly a result of other people misfortune, and how JayWowser wound up with very little to do on his final few turns. It occurred to me that these are similar "issues" we've had with Conquest of the Empire... another Wallace game (more or less). The limit of 2 actions per turn in both games force players to make things happen over a series of moves, and the fact that certain items must be in place (cowboys, in this instance) and that they are easily lost, can easily lead to situations where players have nothing to do. I think I called this a problem of "inertia" in CotE. Anyway, it's just an observation. I'll lump Way Out West into the same category as Shogun... games I always find fun for the experience, despite the fact they ... might not work exactly right as a strategy game. They are also similar in the sense that they FEEL heavy and strategy oriented in most of their mechanics, but are then sent kareening in the other direction by one or two aspects of the game.
But really, could the Wild West and strategy REALLY be found in the same game and feel right? Probably not.
edit: I re-read the last Way Out West post, to see if I had really won. I did. Unsurprisingly, the reason was similar: the leading player was undone, and I spied an opportunity in the aftermath. Who knew the cowboy way favoured the sneaky?
2nd edit: a quick trip to BGG shows me we are not the only ones that want to redo the board. There are already a number of alternates there for download!
Luch, Kozure and I opened with Flying Colours, a naval war game from GMT. We played an introductory scenario which boils down the conflict to a simple 2 vs 1 fight. Luch and I teamed up as the British and Kozure played the lone (but much larger) french ship. It's a basic hex and counter war game, played on a large paper map of the ocean. Rules, for our scenario at least, were quite simple for a wargame. Movement factors in wind direction in a simple way, and other than that the rest of the rules involved combat (choosing to shoot the hull or the sails, arc of fire restrictions, dice result tables, etc). In our brief session, Luch and I sped along to the back of Kozure's ship. Along the way, I took a shot just as I was rounding the bend and started a fire onboard his ship. Then, I took a perfect shot right down the length of his hull and cleared the way for Luch to do the same. We both rolled high, and the French sunk like rocks.
We got pretty lucky, and I'd say the scenario felt pretty heavily weighted in our favour (Kozure confirmed this later). Still, it seemed like the system would be fun enough to play a more fleshed out scenario next time.
Next, we played Way Out West. JayWowzer and Shemp had arrived. I think it's the first time we've played with five.
Full disclosure: I always feel lost when I play this game. Although eurogames frequently make you feel like there are all sorts of things you'd like to do, and very few actions to do them, WoW takes is a few steps further and I never feel like I'm being effective. In fact, I was convinced that I'd never even come close to winning before (though, apparently I won our last game. I'll have to re-read that post to remember it).
True to form, the game started and I was perpetually broke, never in possession of the store or hotel where it was usefull (or the wagon, for that matter). I decided to build the jail everywhere, and see if I could take other buildings over later on. I also decided I'd try to start fights when the odds were approximately 3 to 4 against me (since the weaker side shoots first, it seems like an advantage to go in weaker). Whether it's an ill advised plan to start with, or luck just wasn't on my side, all I can say is I tried to put that plan in action on 2 occasions in Abalene and both times I lost everything. I was down to 1 cowboy on the board (in Kansas) and it was protecting the last 4 cows I had on the board. I thought I was sunk. Then, something funny happened... everybody started fighting each other around me and THEY lost everything. My cows in Kansas city stayed safe (giving me the majority) and Dodge City went from raging metropolis to ghost town. I had since placed 2 cowboys there and had my pick of the buildings to take over. Having gained the majority (through buildings, I still had no cows outside of Abalene) I scored big at the endgame and won.
On my ride home, I was thinking about how my win was mostly a result of other people misfortune, and how JayWowser wound up with very little to do on his final few turns. It occurred to me that these are similar "issues" we've had with Conquest of the Empire... another Wallace game (more or less). The limit of 2 actions per turn in both games force players to make things happen over a series of moves, and the fact that certain items must be in place (cowboys, in this instance) and that they are easily lost, can easily lead to situations where players have nothing to do. I think I called this a problem of "inertia" in CotE. Anyway, it's just an observation. I'll lump Way Out West into the same category as Shogun... games I always find fun for the experience, despite the fact they ... might not work exactly right as a strategy game. They are also similar in the sense that they FEEL heavy and strategy oriented in most of their mechanics, but are then sent kareening in the other direction by one or two aspects of the game.
But really, could the Wild West and strategy REALLY be found in the same game and feel right? Probably not.
edit: I re-read the last Way Out West post, to see if I had really won. I did. Unsurprisingly, the reason was similar: the leading player was undone, and I spied an opportunity in the aftermath. Who knew the cowboy way favoured the sneaky?
2nd edit: a quick trip to BGG shows me we are not the only ones that want to redo the board. There are already a number of alternates there for download!
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Random games (Blue Moon City, Goa, Transeuropa, Carcassonne)
With Bharmer and Kozure out this week, I was glad I had packed my bag with a number of games that were good at three.
Blue Moon City
I explained the rules to Shemp, and then he proceeded to show US how the game is played. Clearly, the man has a knack for the it because as much as luck has a big role in the game, strategy is very important and he really seemed like he knew what he was doing (he avoided wasting cards on getting scales when he couldn't win the majority, for example, wich is a very common mistake). In the final turns of the game, Shemp was one offering from winning with a pile of crystals in front of him. He skipped the obelisk and went to a building, so he obviously was just short one or two. I was also one offering away, but quite a bit short on crystals. Lucky for me, Luch forced the payout of scales on his turn and I was the big beneficiary. With my newfound wealth, I managed to swoop in for the win. Shemp should have won, but such is luck. This is my favorite middleweight game right now, always extremely enjoyable. Too bad it maxes out at 4 players.
Goa
And another fine game which is limited to 4. Shemp hadn't played this one either so we explained it and got underway (in record time, too). I couldn't really get things working right... always short one or two actions from doing what I wanted properly. Worst of all, Luch kept getting to level 4 in each track just before I would! He won quite handily, with all four islands discovered and a well advanced set of tracks. I'll have to look it up, but I think Luch creamed us last time we played this too. I guess everyone has a inclination for certain games.
Transeuropa
Since we had about 1/2 hour left, we brought out Shemp's copy of Transeuropa. I've played Transamerica quite often, but not this version. I can't say it felt substantially different, with the sole exception that some of the Nordic countries seem particularly hard to get to. Luch took a major dive on the first round, bringing him to within 1 point of losing. Then, as this game often does, things flipped pretty dramatically in the following rounds and I wound up losing big time (I think Shemp and Luch tied for the win)
Carcassonne
With 10 minutes left, we opted for speed Carcassonne. As soon as you play a tile, you grab your next one. As soon as it's your turn, you must play. This is one for the Conan brain, and apparently I don't have one... I SUCKED. I beleive I was lapped by both players. Oh well! (the end of the game comes REAL FAST with just the base tiles). I think Shemp won on the strength of his farmers. Game over in 10 minutes flat.
Blue Moon City
I explained the rules to Shemp, and then he proceeded to show US how the game is played. Clearly, the man has a knack for the it because as much as luck has a big role in the game, strategy is very important and he really seemed like he knew what he was doing (he avoided wasting cards on getting scales when he couldn't win the majority, for example, wich is a very common mistake). In the final turns of the game, Shemp was one offering from winning with a pile of crystals in front of him. He skipped the obelisk and went to a building, so he obviously was just short one or two. I was also one offering away, but quite a bit short on crystals. Lucky for me, Luch forced the payout of scales on his turn and I was the big beneficiary. With my newfound wealth, I managed to swoop in for the win. Shemp should have won, but such is luck. This is my favorite middleweight game right now, always extremely enjoyable. Too bad it maxes out at 4 players.
Goa
And another fine game which is limited to 4. Shemp hadn't played this one either so we explained it and got underway (in record time, too). I couldn't really get things working right... always short one or two actions from doing what I wanted properly. Worst of all, Luch kept getting to level 4 in each track just before I would! He won quite handily, with all four islands discovered and a well advanced set of tracks. I'll have to look it up, but I think Luch creamed us last time we played this too. I guess everyone has a inclination for certain games.
Transeuropa
Since we had about 1/2 hour left, we brought out Shemp's copy of Transeuropa. I've played Transamerica quite often, but not this version. I can't say it felt substantially different, with the sole exception that some of the Nordic countries seem particularly hard to get to. Luch took a major dive on the first round, bringing him to within 1 point of losing. Then, as this game often does, things flipped pretty dramatically in the following rounds and I wound up losing big time (I think Shemp and Luch tied for the win)
Carcassonne
With 10 minutes left, we opted for speed Carcassonne. As soon as you play a tile, you grab your next one. As soon as it's your turn, you must play. This is one for the Conan brain, and apparently I don't have one... I SUCKED. I beleive I was lapped by both players. Oh well! (the end of the game comes REAL FAST with just the base tiles). I think Shemp won on the strength of his farmers. Game over in 10 minutes flat.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Where...are...you? (Clue: The Great Museum Caper, Fury of Dracula, To Court the King)
Shemp and Bharmer were out this week, but in an email to us Shemp mentioned we should take this occasion to play Lord of the Rings: Sauron and Clue: The Great Museum Caper, since he hates them and he won't be there. I wanted to play Fury of Dracula, so I couldn't completely satisfy his request, but 1 out of 2 ain't bad, right?
Clue: The Great Museum Caper
I'm not sure why I keep bringing this one out, because it just doesn't seem to work. There's a part of me that really wants this to be a really good casual-friendly game (as it's described by many on BGG), but each session ends the same way... the thief didn't have a chance. I thought that playing with 3 players would be better balanced than with 4, and it was, but not probably enough. In our two games, the thief was caught easily before there was much danger of a successful escape with 3 paintings. Maybe rolling d6 for the detectives is too much or maybe the layout of the board is too restrictive. Fortunately (unfortunately ?), I got another glimmer of hope during the final few moves of my turn as the thief which will probably cause me to give it yet another go: I don't think I"ve been capitalising enough on the order of movement of the detectives. In other words, If I move between each detective's turn I am much safer running towards a player that just moved because I will get to move once or twice before that player gets another turn. I'm pretty sure I've been letting the location of the pawns and my objectives dictate my move, and possibly the game would be easier if the thief took greater advantage of the timing aspect.
Still, it's so easy to get backed into a corner by the detectives... I'll probably give it one last try at some point and then trade it away.
Fury of Dracula
Another game of hidden movement, but this one far more successful in design. Fury of Dracula is a game I really enjoy as a change of pace. It represents, to me, many of the great things "Ameritrash" games bring to the table (well integrated theme, mostly) but streamlined with eurogame sensibilities to make it a manageable and reasonably smooth experience.
Dracula was played by Kozure this time, so this was my first game ever on the hunters' side. Luch had Lord Godalming and Seward. I had Van Helsing and Mina. Kozure played an excellent game of cat and mouse, starting out in the east and snaking around us while convincing us that he was elsewhere (in fact, a lucky card draw revealed that his starting location was right next to us, and yet he managed to evade us and remain hidden most of the game). A well armed Van Helsing did manage to find and attack the count in Munich and inflict enormous damage with his stake and sacred bullets but he fell a few points short of sealing the deal... Dracula escaped and a hapless Mina soon wandered into a well protected catacomb where she died and gave Kozure the victory.
I'm curious how many Dracula victories are directly a result of Mina's death. Both of ours have been.
The reason I think this game succeeds so well is that the rules are fairly streamlined and the amount of dice rolling and modifiers which need to be kept track of a kept to a minimum. Also, the "hidden character" works because finding it is not the only goal... you also have to kill it. This means that the tension inherent in trying to pin down the count (or in evading the characters, if you're Dracula) doesn't operate in a straight line. You may have to find, fight and find again several times over the course of the game. I like it because it avoids the *cheap victory* feeling you get in Clue:TGMC (for example) when you accidentally land on the thief and win the game. My only complaint is that it takes too much space on the table for all the bits and character cards, that the game runs a little too long, and that the combat system is a little clunky (all the separate decks, the downtime it creates, the fruitless "loops" which can occur in combat). I'm not sure what system could have improved on these points without sacrificing flavor, but it would be interesting to come up with one.
To Court the King
Luch left us, so me and Kozure tried out To Court the King, a dice rolling game which seems to try to mash together Yahtzee and (insert random renaissance Italy themed euro... Louis XIV? Princes of Florence?).
Game play is simple enough. Roll three dice, set at least one aside, and roll again until all dice have been set aside. According to the result of the rolls (a pair, a full house, a straight), you may be able to purchase a card which will give you a special power towards all your subsequent rolls. Maybe you'll be able to roll and additional die, set the value of one of your dice, re-roll a die, etc, etc. The first player to roll 7 of a kind ends the game and then a final roll-off determines the winner.
Deciding which character cards to try to purchase, and then how to best use their powers, is fairly fun. I imagine for more than 3 players the downtime might get too high, and there is the real potential that the best choice will eventually become too easy to pick out, but it will take more games to know for sure. I wish there was a bit more tension in the choices, however. It would have been nice, for example, if collecting 1s somehow yielded powerful cards to offset the risk of going after such a weak suit. As it is, 6s are always better than 3s or 1s. Higher totals always win. Different viable strategies might have made it more engaging.
I can't really say that it grabbed me too much, but it certainly wasn't bad (I guess I'm just not sure in what circumstances I'd want to play it in the future... it's got too much going on for non-gamers, it's too long for filler and too random for a serious game). I think I'll prbably trade it sooner rather than later.
In the game we played, I made it to seven of a kind first, but the queen it gave me was not enough to let me win the game. Kozure took it with 8 (or 9?) of a kind.
Clue: The Great Museum Caper
I'm not sure why I keep bringing this one out, because it just doesn't seem to work. There's a part of me that really wants this to be a really good casual-friendly game (as it's described by many on BGG), but each session ends the same way... the thief didn't have a chance. I thought that playing with 3 players would be better balanced than with 4, and it was, but not probably enough. In our two games, the thief was caught easily before there was much danger of a successful escape with 3 paintings. Maybe rolling d6 for the detectives is too much or maybe the layout of the board is too restrictive. Fortunately (unfortunately ?), I got another glimmer of hope during the final few moves of my turn as the thief which will probably cause me to give it yet another go: I don't think I"ve been capitalising enough on the order of movement of the detectives. In other words, If I move between each detective's turn I am much safer running towards a player that just moved because I will get to move once or twice before that player gets another turn. I'm pretty sure I've been letting the location of the pawns and my objectives dictate my move, and possibly the game would be easier if the thief took greater advantage of the timing aspect.
Still, it's so easy to get backed into a corner by the detectives... I'll probably give it one last try at some point and then trade it away.
Fury of Dracula
Another game of hidden movement, but this one far more successful in design. Fury of Dracula is a game I really enjoy as a change of pace. It represents, to me, many of the great things "Ameritrash" games bring to the table (well integrated theme, mostly) but streamlined with eurogame sensibilities to make it a manageable and reasonably smooth experience.
Dracula was played by Kozure this time, so this was my first game ever on the hunters' side. Luch had Lord Godalming and Seward. I had Van Helsing and Mina. Kozure played an excellent game of cat and mouse, starting out in the east and snaking around us while convincing us that he was elsewhere (in fact, a lucky card draw revealed that his starting location was right next to us, and yet he managed to evade us and remain hidden most of the game). A well armed Van Helsing did manage to find and attack the count in Munich and inflict enormous damage with his stake and sacred bullets but he fell a few points short of sealing the deal... Dracula escaped and a hapless Mina soon wandered into a well protected catacomb where she died and gave Kozure the victory.
I'm curious how many Dracula victories are directly a result of Mina's death. Both of ours have been.
The reason I think this game succeeds so well is that the rules are fairly streamlined and the amount of dice rolling and modifiers which need to be kept track of a kept to a minimum. Also, the "hidden character" works because finding it is not the only goal... you also have to kill it. This means that the tension inherent in trying to pin down the count (or in evading the characters, if you're Dracula) doesn't operate in a straight line. You may have to find, fight and find again several times over the course of the game. I like it because it avoids the *cheap victory* feeling you get in Clue:TGMC (for example) when you accidentally land on the thief and win the game. My only complaint is that it takes too much space on the table for all the bits and character cards, that the game runs a little too long, and that the combat system is a little clunky (all the separate decks, the downtime it creates, the fruitless "loops" which can occur in combat). I'm not sure what system could have improved on these points without sacrificing flavor, but it would be interesting to come up with one.
To Court the King
Luch left us, so me and Kozure tried out To Court the King, a dice rolling game which seems to try to mash together Yahtzee and (insert random renaissance Italy themed euro... Louis XIV? Princes of Florence?).
Game play is simple enough. Roll three dice, set at least one aside, and roll again until all dice have been set aside. According to the result of the rolls (a pair, a full house, a straight), you may be able to purchase a card which will give you a special power towards all your subsequent rolls. Maybe you'll be able to roll and additional die, set the value of one of your dice, re-roll a die, etc, etc. The first player to roll 7 of a kind ends the game and then a final roll-off determines the winner.
Deciding which character cards to try to purchase, and then how to best use their powers, is fairly fun. I imagine for more than 3 players the downtime might get too high, and there is the real potential that the best choice will eventually become too easy to pick out, but it will take more games to know for sure. I wish there was a bit more tension in the choices, however. It would have been nice, for example, if collecting 1s somehow yielded powerful cards to offset the risk of going after such a weak suit. As it is, 6s are always better than 3s or 1s. Higher totals always win. Different viable strategies might have made it more engaging.
I can't really say that it grabbed me too much, but it certainly wasn't bad (I guess I'm just not sure in what circumstances I'd want to play it in the future... it's got too much going on for non-gamers, it's too long for filler and too random for a serious game). I think I'll prbably trade it sooner rather than later.
In the game we played, I made it to seven of a kind first, but the queen it gave me was not enough to let me win the game. Kozure took it with 8 (or 9?) of a kind.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Hey, Zed (Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game, Witch Trial)
Halloween Special, super special event!
Pumpkin Pie!
Treat sized snax!
Zombies!
Witches!
Last Night on Earth
At the math trade, a few people were playing this game I had never heard of. It was LNoE. It looked pretty cool, but honestly these types of "Ameritrash" games don't usually do much for me. Too long, too many rules, too fiddly, etc, etc.
Still, I keep wanting to like them. I've purchased and/or played a variety of these "thematic" and "fun" games in the hopes of finding one that struck the right balance between the campy fun of horror movies and a game that works AS A GAME. Those I've tried so far have all been dissapointments in one way or another:
Zombies: Too long, endgame doesn't work. Still, moderately fun if played using the quickplay rules on BGG.
Zombies 4: The suck.
Betrayal at House on the Hill: Very ambitious, but lacked in followthrough. I enjoyed the scenarios, but didn't like that they were obviously never playtested. The "betrayal" mechanic is cool in theory, but clumsy in practice. Still, I had some fun with this one despite it's rather significant faults.
Arkham Horror: Way too long and fiddly for me. Not enough actual decisions. The rest of the group likes it, though.
Not an exhaustive list to be sure, but the pattern is there. Lots of attempts, very few good games. Enter Last Night on Earth.
Is it good? Well, it's not perfect. It's certainly not "great", but it is fun and it does work, so it's easily the most successful attempt yet.
LNoE is a game about everyday people stuck in a zombie nightmare. Though 2-6 players can play, the game always involves 4 heroes and a "horde" of 14 zombies. 1-4 players play cooperatively as the good guys, and up to 2 players play cooperatively as the Zeds. There is a modular board, 8 different heroes and a handful of scenarios to keep things interesting. Gameplay can be boiled down to this: Zombies move 1 space, heroes move 1d6 spaces. Both sides draw and play cards which can cause effects, modify combat, etc, etc. There's more to it, but that's the style of play. Turns fly by, which in my opinion is a great success in the game design.
I'll admit that there is nothing particularly clever or inspired about the game, the trick is that what it does try to do it does well. We played two scenarios, one where the heroes need to take out 15 zombies in 15 turns and the other where the heroes need to find keys and a gas tank so they can high-tail it out in the truck at the center of the board before night falls. Both were fun and seemed balanced (though the heroes won both games, they all went down to the wire). The truck scenario was particulary interesting because in the first few rounds, we found the items we needed and I was thinking that the scenario would be a cake-walk. Then I realized what Shemp was doing (he was playing the zombies)... we weren't being attacked because they were all heading to the truck. Getting there, filling the gas tank and taking off would not be easy. A lucky shot with some dynamite (and, as it turns out, a horribly missplayed rule) cleared the way for us with 2 rounds to spare and we got out.
The production quality is also excellent. The miniatures are very nice, the boards and cards are of high quality and the rulebook is very nice. The zombie theme is well captured by good scenarios and a good deck of hero and zombie cards. I enjoyed it, and unlike past horror efforts, I expect this one will stay in my collection.
(as an aside, I didn't mention Mall of Horror even though we've played it a few times. I actually like MoH, and think that it represents a very original and generally successful way to deal with the zombie theme. However, it's not an ameritrash style game, so I left it out)
We finished up with Witch Trial, a good game by CheapAss. ACTUALLY funny, and with rules that work (though very luck heavy). Probably the best of theirs that I've played. It seemed like my role in the game was to fill other lawyer's pockets, as I couldn't seem to win a case at all! Kozure won.
Pumpkin Pie!
Treat sized snax!
Zombies!
Witches!
Last Night on Earth
At the math trade, a few people were playing this game I had never heard of. It was LNoE. It looked pretty cool, but honestly these types of "Ameritrash" games don't usually do much for me. Too long, too many rules, too fiddly, etc, etc.
Still, I keep wanting to like them. I've purchased and/or played a variety of these "thematic" and "fun" games in the hopes of finding one that struck the right balance between the campy fun of horror movies and a game that works AS A GAME. Those I've tried so far have all been dissapointments in one way or another:
Zombies: Too long, endgame doesn't work. Still, moderately fun if played using the quickplay rules on BGG.
Zombies 4: The suck.
Betrayal at House on the Hill: Very ambitious, but lacked in followthrough. I enjoyed the scenarios, but didn't like that they were obviously never playtested. The "betrayal" mechanic is cool in theory, but clumsy in practice. Still, I had some fun with this one despite it's rather significant faults.
Arkham Horror: Way too long and fiddly for me. Not enough actual decisions. The rest of the group likes it, though.
Not an exhaustive list to be sure, but the pattern is there. Lots of attempts, very few good games. Enter Last Night on Earth.
Is it good? Well, it's not perfect. It's certainly not "great", but it is fun and it does work, so it's easily the most successful attempt yet.
LNoE is a game about everyday people stuck in a zombie nightmare. Though 2-6 players can play, the game always involves 4 heroes and a "horde" of 14 zombies. 1-4 players play cooperatively as the good guys, and up to 2 players play cooperatively as the Zeds. There is a modular board, 8 different heroes and a handful of scenarios to keep things interesting. Gameplay can be boiled down to this: Zombies move 1 space, heroes move 1d6 spaces. Both sides draw and play cards which can cause effects, modify combat, etc, etc. There's more to it, but that's the style of play. Turns fly by, which in my opinion is a great success in the game design.
I'll admit that there is nothing particularly clever or inspired about the game, the trick is that what it does try to do it does well. We played two scenarios, one where the heroes need to take out 15 zombies in 15 turns and the other where the heroes need to find keys and a gas tank so they can high-tail it out in the truck at the center of the board before night falls. Both were fun and seemed balanced (though the heroes won both games, they all went down to the wire). The truck scenario was particulary interesting because in the first few rounds, we found the items we needed and I was thinking that the scenario would be a cake-walk. Then I realized what Shemp was doing (he was playing the zombies)... we weren't being attacked because they were all heading to the truck. Getting there, filling the gas tank and taking off would not be easy. A lucky shot with some dynamite (and, as it turns out, a horribly missplayed rule) cleared the way for us with 2 rounds to spare and we got out.
The production quality is also excellent. The miniatures are very nice, the boards and cards are of high quality and the rulebook is very nice. The zombie theme is well captured by good scenarios and a good deck of hero and zombie cards. I enjoyed it, and unlike past horror efforts, I expect this one will stay in my collection.
(as an aside, I didn't mention Mall of Horror even though we've played it a few times. I actually like MoH, and think that it represents a very original and generally successful way to deal with the zombie theme. However, it's not an ameritrash style game, so I left it out)
We finished up with Witch Trial, a good game by CheapAss. ACTUALLY funny, and with rules that work (though very luck heavy). Probably the best of theirs that I've played. It seemed like my role in the game was to fill other lawyer's pockets, as I couldn't seem to win a case at all! Kozure won.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Camel. Hump. (Princes of Florence, Through the Desert, China)
BHarmer's pick this week. A random assortment of games, but good ones.
Princes of Florence
We opened up with one of my all time favorites, Princes of Florence. As far as I'm concerned, there is no better optimisation game. What does this type of game need to do well? Players need to be largely in control of their fates, but there needs to be just a little luck to keep things from becoming static, and just enough player interaction that a player might feel the pressure to change an otherwise ideal strategy to react to evolving circumstances.
I've tried a few different strategies in this game. The pure builder and jester strategies are both popular, but since they are fairly obvious the competition for those resources are typically pretty tight (making them less effective as a result). Instead of going a middle road, as I usually do lately, I decided to try to simply bulk up my professions early and see if the extra hand size would carry me through the game. I auctioned for a recruiter card on the first round and purchased a profession as my first action. I purchased another profession on the second round. This meant that, along with the jester I had won in the auction, my works were worth a minimum of 8 (6 profession cards and 2 for the jester). As a large number of my professions required forests and the freedom of religion or opinion, I was able to gather what I needed and play a large number of works cost effectively.
Things didn't go perfectly, though. The profession cards and prestige cards I drew didn't match up well with my hand. As I tried to bid up other players I got stuck with a builder I didn't want. I miscalculated on a turn and nearly made it impossible for myself to complete my plan to complete two works on the final round. These things make me happy, because if they never happened, the game would quickly become very boring. I'm glad the resources are so limited, I'm glad that there are so few turns, and I'm glad that I can use the auction to make life difficult for other players (and that it can come back and bite me).
It was a very tight game until the end. I won due to the two works on my last round.
Through the Desert
After the usual griping about the terrible colours that the camels come in, we played two rounds of this excellent little game. Kozure killed us in the first, with a good number of 'longest chains' and surrounded areas. I won the second, largely due to a large 21 point area of the board I was able to cordon off. This is probably the first time that my initial placement amounted to more than just 'I'll place this camel near those two water holes' or 'between these two palm trees'. I placed a camel halfway up the edge of the board, and placed two blockers to the right of it. Since the blockers matched the colour of the other player's camels in the area, it was tricky for them to come block my land grab. Obviously, in a five player game the odds of having a placement strategy work are minimal since it's just luck no one saw what I was doing or even that they didn't place a camel or two in a place which would have screwed up my plan unknowingly. Still, they didn't and it worked! Still, it's pretty cool that despite what seemed like a game winning move, the lead was pretty small since I had to forego so many other scoring opportunities (water holes, palm trees, longest chains) in order to make it work.
Oh, and I ALMOST enclosed a circle right in the middle of the board. That would have been cool (damn you Kozure!!!)
China
We ended with China, another excellent game which packs a punch in very little time. 4 Players is pretty much as high as it will go before kind of breaking down, though (and 3 is best). Luch usually seems to go heavy on advisors, and Kozure normally seems to go majorities and chains. I went advisors as well, so I was in frequent competition with Luch. Not sure who won the game, because we realized later that we forgot to score the roads! Minus those, I had won, but I was very weak in connections so it could have been anyone's game.
Princes of Florence
We opened up with one of my all time favorites, Princes of Florence. As far as I'm concerned, there is no better optimisation game. What does this type of game need to do well? Players need to be largely in control of their fates, but there needs to be just a little luck to keep things from becoming static, and just enough player interaction that a player might feel the pressure to change an otherwise ideal strategy to react to evolving circumstances.
I've tried a few different strategies in this game. The pure builder and jester strategies are both popular, but since they are fairly obvious the competition for those resources are typically pretty tight (making them less effective as a result). Instead of going a middle road, as I usually do lately, I decided to try to simply bulk up my professions early and see if the extra hand size would carry me through the game. I auctioned for a recruiter card on the first round and purchased a profession as my first action. I purchased another profession on the second round. This meant that, along with the jester I had won in the auction, my works were worth a minimum of 8 (6 profession cards and 2 for the jester). As a large number of my professions required forests and the freedom of religion or opinion, I was able to gather what I needed and play a large number of works cost effectively.
Things didn't go perfectly, though. The profession cards and prestige cards I drew didn't match up well with my hand. As I tried to bid up other players I got stuck with a builder I didn't want. I miscalculated on a turn and nearly made it impossible for myself to complete my plan to complete two works on the final round. These things make me happy, because if they never happened, the game would quickly become very boring. I'm glad the resources are so limited, I'm glad that there are so few turns, and I'm glad that I can use the auction to make life difficult for other players (and that it can come back and bite me).
It was a very tight game until the end. I won due to the two works on my last round.
Through the Desert
After the usual griping about the terrible colours that the camels come in, we played two rounds of this excellent little game. Kozure killed us in the first, with a good number of 'longest chains' and surrounded areas. I won the second, largely due to a large 21 point area of the board I was able to cordon off. This is probably the first time that my initial placement amounted to more than just 'I'll place this camel near those two water holes' or 'between these two palm trees'. I placed a camel halfway up the edge of the board, and placed two blockers to the right of it. Since the blockers matched the colour of the other player's camels in the area, it was tricky for them to come block my land grab. Obviously, in a five player game the odds of having a placement strategy work are minimal since it's just luck no one saw what I was doing or even that they didn't place a camel or two in a place which would have screwed up my plan unknowingly. Still, they didn't and it worked! Still, it's pretty cool that despite what seemed like a game winning move, the lead was pretty small since I had to forego so many other scoring opportunities (water holes, palm trees, longest chains) in order to make it work.
Oh, and I ALMOST enclosed a circle right in the middle of the board. That would have been cool (damn you Kozure!!!)
China
We ended with China, another excellent game which packs a punch in very little time. 4 Players is pretty much as high as it will go before kind of breaking down, though (and 3 is best). Luch usually seems to go heavy on advisors, and Kozure normally seems to go majorities and chains. I went advisors as well, so I was in frequent competition with Luch. Not sure who won the game, because we realized later that we forgot to score the roads! Minus those, I had won, but I was very weak in connections so it could have been anyone's game.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Ouch (Nexus Ops, Ingenious, Clue: The Great Museum Caper, Jungle Speed + Expansion)
This post is quite late. The evening in question is Wednesday, September 28th (I wasn't around this week. From the emails, it's possible there was no gaming at all in my absence)
I chose to play the new games I received at the recent math trade (Nexus Ops, Ingenious and Jungle Speed + Expansion), along with one I received at the previous one (Clue: The Great Museum Caper).
Nexus Ops
Nexus Ops is a game from Avalon Hill's recent attempt to make a comeback in boardgaming. While the line in general didn't see much success (or so I hear), Nexus Ops was one of only two games to get any sort of positive recognition (the other was Vegas Showdown). Billed as a sort of "Risk done right", I thought it might fill a niche in my collection.
The concept is a little forced: It's the future and a new planet has been discovered which seems to be rich in Rubium. Each player represents a corporation which wants to mine the planet for all it's worth. To this end, it sends in soldiers and enlists creatures on the planet to help. In practice, it's an excuse to get a bunch of armies together and fight.
The board consists of a number of hexogonal tiles, layed in a circular pattern just like Settlers of Catan, except that the center is an elevated platform. Each player has a base at one edge where units are deployed. After the initial setup, the game consists purely of deploying units, fighting and collecting income based on the mines the player controls at the end of a turn. It sounds simple, and it is, but the designers have slipped in there a few nice ideas which make this game work where others might have failed:
1) The victory condition is acheiving 12 victory points. Victory points are almost exclusively gained by winning battles. This small decision ensures that the game keeps moving and never results in turtling.
2) Players gain secret missions at the end of every turn. These are normally to win a battle in a certain place, with a certain unit or under certain conditions. Players will normally alter their play to attempt to satisfy the conditions, which allows the game to feel a little less repetitive than it otherwise would.
3) If a player wins a battle, he/she is allowed to play mission cards to gain victory points. However, if this occurs the losing player gets to draw an "energize" card, which will grant him an advantage in the future (such as rolling additional dice, destroying units, etc). This is a nice, simple way to keep losing players in the running.
4) The creatures seem well balanced. The expensive ones are worth more, due to the powers they get and their superior ability in battle. Still, they are risky because a well coordinated attack by several smaller units. Even with lots of money, it's never obvious which units a player should buy.
I had fun with Nexus Ops. Though the overall visual impression of the game is ridiculously tacky, the component quality is generally quite good (the only excpetion would be the cardboard center obelisk, which seems too cheap for the rest of the game). The brightly coloured creatures are kinda cool, though in a few instances they could have been better differentiated.
I think it will do just fine in my collection... there for those sessions were I just want to beat stuff up.
Session Report
Not knowing how to play the game, I opened with just 2 units... a soldier and a rock spider. I discovered another rock spider but was unable to man any of my starting mines (leaving me with little income for the next turn). Having observed the weakness of my opening move, the other players purchased more cheaper units and spread out while keeping people behind to generate income. A few turns in, things were looking grim. Shemp, Luch and Kozure had lots of units on the board... my only saving grace was that I managed to get 2 rock spiders on the monolith and enjoyed the energize card bonus for many rounds before the others got fed up with exploring the board and purchasing reinforcements. Kozure started moving into my home base and I could do very little to fight back (Kozure was the USSR of this game, with nearly half the board under his control). Luch was taking the lion's share of the VPs by succesfully battling Shemp and Kozure. My stash of cards was difficult to use because I had so few units, but I managed to focus on a few easy battles and accumulated a pretty good score considering. Shemp couldn't roll a winning die to save his life, and Kozure wasn't fighting very much at all which meant his VP total didn't really reflect his dominance of so much territory.
Entering what was our last round, Luch and I were both in a position to potentially win on our turns. Difference was, I needed to get lucky, and he was so strong that it was almost inconceivable that he would'nt win.
He did.
Ingenious
Ingenious is a kind of variant on dominos which also reminds me of Blokus for it's relative simplicity. There's not much to it (you place a tile which has two symbols on it and score points according to how well it matches with what's already on the board) but the Tigris and Euphrates style scoring and the fact that it plays well with 2, 3 or 4 players make it a much better game in my opinion (I also like Blokus, but the base set only really plays well with 4).
I think everyone liked it, but to be fair I mostly got this one to play with non-gamers at home.
Clue: The Great Museum Caper
This was a game I picked up at the last math trade. When we played it, it seemed like fun but I couldn't understand how it was possible for the thief to win. I almost traded it away at this math trade because the box is SO big, and the game seemed SO unbalanced, that I figured it wouldn't get much play. Having failed to trade it, I figured I'd give it another shot.
The balance seemed even worse than before. Utterly impossible, in fact. I've checked BGG, I can't see anything we are doing wrong. I'm guessing that 2-3 players would work better, but I'm not sure I'll ever find out...
(oh, and Shemp said at the end of the game that he couldn't decide whether he would rate this above or below Lord of the Rings: Sauron. Considering how much he hates that game, I was quite surprised. Sure, it's not working very well...but it's not a game that stands out enough that it would even occur to me that it would be worthy of hating. And this from a guy who likes Scotland Yard, so I thought he might really go for this)
Back to the trade pile.
Jungle Speed + Expansion
Not much to say, except that if you've ever played this before and thought that it made your head hurt... you ain't seen nothing yet. The new cards provided are not all new patterns. They are further variations on the existing ones! There are subtle changes which are not easy to process, and the whole thing is very headache inducing.
I LOVE it.
(note: I don't recommend playing with the full deck with 4 people. Our game did end (I won), but it could have gone on for a long time. )
I chose to play the new games I received at the recent math trade (Nexus Ops, Ingenious and Jungle Speed + Expansion), along with one I received at the previous one (Clue: The Great Museum Caper).
Nexus Ops
Nexus Ops is a game from Avalon Hill's recent attempt to make a comeback in boardgaming. While the line in general didn't see much success (or so I hear), Nexus Ops was one of only two games to get any sort of positive recognition (the other was Vegas Showdown). Billed as a sort of "Risk done right", I thought it might fill a niche in my collection.
The concept is a little forced: It's the future and a new planet has been discovered which seems to be rich in Rubium. Each player represents a corporation which wants to mine the planet for all it's worth. To this end, it sends in soldiers and enlists creatures on the planet to help. In practice, it's an excuse to get a bunch of armies together and fight.
The board consists of a number of hexogonal tiles, layed in a circular pattern just like Settlers of Catan, except that the center is an elevated platform. Each player has a base at one edge where units are deployed. After the initial setup, the game consists purely of deploying units, fighting and collecting income based on the mines the player controls at the end of a turn. It sounds simple, and it is, but the designers have slipped in there a few nice ideas which make this game work where others might have failed:
1) The victory condition is acheiving 12 victory points. Victory points are almost exclusively gained by winning battles. This small decision ensures that the game keeps moving and never results in turtling.
2) Players gain secret missions at the end of every turn. These are normally to win a battle in a certain place, with a certain unit or under certain conditions. Players will normally alter their play to attempt to satisfy the conditions, which allows the game to feel a little less repetitive than it otherwise would.
3) If a player wins a battle, he/she is allowed to play mission cards to gain victory points. However, if this occurs the losing player gets to draw an "energize" card, which will grant him an advantage in the future (such as rolling additional dice, destroying units, etc). This is a nice, simple way to keep losing players in the running.
4) The creatures seem well balanced. The expensive ones are worth more, due to the powers they get and their superior ability in battle. Still, they are risky because a well coordinated attack by several smaller units. Even with lots of money, it's never obvious which units a player should buy.
I had fun with Nexus Ops. Though the overall visual impression of the game is ridiculously tacky, the component quality is generally quite good (the only excpetion would be the cardboard center obelisk, which seems too cheap for the rest of the game). The brightly coloured creatures are kinda cool, though in a few instances they could have been better differentiated.
I think it will do just fine in my collection... there for those sessions were I just want to beat stuff up.
Session Report
Not knowing how to play the game, I opened with just 2 units... a soldier and a rock spider. I discovered another rock spider but was unable to man any of my starting mines (leaving me with little income for the next turn). Having observed the weakness of my opening move, the other players purchased more cheaper units and spread out while keeping people behind to generate income. A few turns in, things were looking grim. Shemp, Luch and Kozure had lots of units on the board... my only saving grace was that I managed to get 2 rock spiders on the monolith and enjoyed the energize card bonus for many rounds before the others got fed up with exploring the board and purchasing reinforcements. Kozure started moving into my home base and I could do very little to fight back (Kozure was the USSR of this game, with nearly half the board under his control). Luch was taking the lion's share of the VPs by succesfully battling Shemp and Kozure. My stash of cards was difficult to use because I had so few units, but I managed to focus on a few easy battles and accumulated a pretty good score considering. Shemp couldn't roll a winning die to save his life, and Kozure wasn't fighting very much at all which meant his VP total didn't really reflect his dominance of so much territory.
Entering what was our last round, Luch and I were both in a position to potentially win on our turns. Difference was, I needed to get lucky, and he was so strong that it was almost inconceivable that he would'nt win.
He did.
Ingenious
Ingenious is a kind of variant on dominos which also reminds me of Blokus for it's relative simplicity. There's not much to it (you place a tile which has two symbols on it and score points according to how well it matches with what's already on the board) but the Tigris and Euphrates style scoring and the fact that it plays well with 2, 3 or 4 players make it a much better game in my opinion (I also like Blokus, but the base set only really plays well with 4).
I think everyone liked it, but to be fair I mostly got this one to play with non-gamers at home.
Clue: The Great Museum Caper
This was a game I picked up at the last math trade. When we played it, it seemed like fun but I couldn't understand how it was possible for the thief to win. I almost traded it away at this math trade because the box is SO big, and the game seemed SO unbalanced, that I figured it wouldn't get much play. Having failed to trade it, I figured I'd give it another shot.
The balance seemed even worse than before. Utterly impossible, in fact. I've checked BGG, I can't see anything we are doing wrong. I'm guessing that 2-3 players would work better, but I'm not sure I'll ever find out...
(oh, and Shemp said at the end of the game that he couldn't decide whether he would rate this above or below Lord of the Rings: Sauron. Considering how much he hates that game, I was quite surprised. Sure, it's not working very well...but it's not a game that stands out enough that it would even occur to me that it would be worthy of hating. And this from a guy who likes Scotland Yard, so I thought he might really go for this)
Back to the trade pile.
Jungle Speed + Expansion
Not much to say, except that if you've ever played this before and thought that it made your head hurt... you ain't seen nothing yet. The new cards provided are not all new patterns. They are further variations on the existing ones! There are subtle changes which are not easy to process, and the whole thing is very headache inducing.
I LOVE it.
(note: I don't recommend playing with the full deck with 4 people. Our game did end (I won), but it could have gone on for a long time. )
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Math Trade Day (Entdecker, Lock n' Load: Band of Heroes)
2nd Toronto Area Math trade has come and gone.
This time, instead of Yorkdale shopping center, the trade was cleverly arranged to coincide with the TABS game convention (Toronto Area Boardgame Society). Therefore, after trading all our games, we could elect to go inside and get some gaming in. This year, I traded away Zombies 4 (a very unfortunate purchase) and Betrayal at the House on Haunted Hill (a game I actually sort of enjoyed, but was too often frustrating) for Ingenious, and Pueblo (a game I enjoyed, but never got around to actually playing often enough) for Nexus Ops. While I was at the convention, I also picked up used copies of Jungle Speed and it's expansion for $20 total.
A good day.
Once inside, I wandered around and eventually sat with a few players to try out Entdecker, a game I was hoping to trade for but lost out.
Entdecker
Entdecker is a game by Klaus Teuber which, apparently, was supposed to be part of his original vision for Settlers of Catan. While Entdecker was not a bad game by any means, this type of story clearly reinforces why designers need good editors.
Entdecker is an exploration game. The large board depicts a grided expanse of water, a number of paths which lead to huts and a giant sea snake at the top (the scoring track). The water is then seeded with a few island tiles and bonus point objectives (there are various starting setups available).
On a player's turn, they must pick a starting point for their expedition and then announce how many spaces they plan to explore. There is a cost associated with this, and the full amount must be paid up front. Open face tiles are extremely expensive, and face down ones are cheap but risky. Tiles are then drawn one by one and placed Carcassonne style on the board from the point of origin. If, at any point, the player draws a tile he/she can't play OR the player chooses to place a token on a tile the exploration phase ends... any remaining money spent on unflipped tiles is lost! It's no big surprise that the reason players are placing tokens on tiles is that when an island becomes fully explored it will score points, determined by it's size, to players who have a presence there (area majority style). In this game, all players present get SOMETHING (2nd player gets half of first, 3rd player gets half of 2nd, 4th gets half of 3rd). When the sea is fully explored, the game ends.
There are two major and one minor mechanics which are worth mentioning here:
1) Players have scout tokens, settlements and forts. When determining majorities, numbers matter but there are a few anomalies: a single fort trumps any number of settlements or scouts. A single settlement trumps any number of scouts. Not surprisingly, settlements and forts cost quite a bit more than scouts.
2) When an island is scored, players retrieve any settlements and forts they had on the island. However, scouts are instead placed on the island exploration tracks on the right of the board. At the end of the game, the value of each track is revealed and the player with the most scouts on each track wins those VPs (it's not totaly random, though. Players do have 1 or 2 opportunities to see the value of the huts). These points seem to amount to roughly 1/3 of the entire score, so this mini-game cannot go unnoticed.
3) Money is very scarce in the game. When a player goes to less than 4 gold, he/she must roll a die. That players gets the amount listed on the die, and all other players get that much +1. In other words, you never want the be the one to have to roll the die, because you are giving an advantage to the other players.
Overall, I quite liked the game. I was afraid it would feel like a Carcassonne clone, but it really doesn't. The exploration feeling is there, and the contest for islands and the island exploration tracks works really well. The randomness is important but suited to the theme. It does have a big problem though... it's way too long. This should have been a 1 hour game, but ours took over 2 hours. It simply doesn't stay fun for that period of time. I'm not sure if I'll ever get to play this again, but if I do I would want to try reducing the board size to see if it helped.
Theres a fun game in there, but it needs to be shorter.
(as for the session report, I was trailing for most of the game as one player consistently nabbed the best islands after others would worked hard to develop them and another player was quite sharp at spotting easy opportunities for quick points. I found myself being the money roller one most turns. I managed to send many of my scouts to the island exploration tracks and redeemed myself at the endgame. I still came in 3rd, but the scores were much closer than they had been.)
Next, I played the introductory scenario of Lock n' Load, Band of Brothers with Kozure (who goes regularly to these things, though the rest of our group does not). It's a simple little scenario which involves a small group of allies holed up in a few central buildings as the axis storms in with an equally small team on a random edge of the board. The goal is to be in possession of that central area by the end of 6 turns. I was doing a decent job of holding my own against Kozure (a much more experienced wargamer), and felt I had a chance of winning until the final turn when I did a very stupid thing: I grouped my forces into a large force and ran through open terrain to obliterate his forces in melee. The problem? As I crossed the open terrain, I gave him a beautiful opportunity to mow me down with opportunity fire. And that's what he did.
All in all, I quite enjoy this game. The rules for infantry combat are simple for this type of game, the box ships with a large number of scenarios, the unit count is low (making setup and takedown fast and easy, and making the scenarios easy to digest in short periods of time). It makes for a much more satisfying game than Memoir '44 from the point of view of experiencing a small scale battle with interesting winning conditions and varied scenarios, though Memoir clearly is simpler and has certain advantages of its own (most of them aesthetic).
This time, instead of Yorkdale shopping center, the trade was cleverly arranged to coincide with the TABS game convention (Toronto Area Boardgame Society). Therefore, after trading all our games, we could elect to go inside and get some gaming in. This year, I traded away Zombies 4 (a very unfortunate purchase) and Betrayal at the House on Haunted Hill (a game I actually sort of enjoyed, but was too often frustrating) for Ingenious, and Pueblo (a game I enjoyed, but never got around to actually playing often enough) for Nexus Ops. While I was at the convention, I also picked up used copies of Jungle Speed and it's expansion for $20 total.
A good day.
Once inside, I wandered around and eventually sat with a few players to try out Entdecker, a game I was hoping to trade for but lost out.
Entdecker
Entdecker is a game by Klaus Teuber which, apparently, was supposed to be part of his original vision for Settlers of Catan. While Entdecker was not a bad game by any means, this type of story clearly reinforces why designers need good editors.
Entdecker is an exploration game. The large board depicts a grided expanse of water, a number of paths which lead to huts and a giant sea snake at the top (the scoring track). The water is then seeded with a few island tiles and bonus point objectives (there are various starting setups available).
On a player's turn, they must pick a starting point for their expedition and then announce how many spaces they plan to explore. There is a cost associated with this, and the full amount must be paid up front. Open face tiles are extremely expensive, and face down ones are cheap but risky. Tiles are then drawn one by one and placed Carcassonne style on the board from the point of origin. If, at any point, the player draws a tile he/she can't play OR the player chooses to place a token on a tile the exploration phase ends... any remaining money spent on unflipped tiles is lost! It's no big surprise that the reason players are placing tokens on tiles is that when an island becomes fully explored it will score points, determined by it's size, to players who have a presence there (area majority style). In this game, all players present get SOMETHING (2nd player gets half of first, 3rd player gets half of 2nd, 4th gets half of 3rd). When the sea is fully explored, the game ends.
There are two major and one minor mechanics which are worth mentioning here:
1) Players have scout tokens, settlements and forts. When determining majorities, numbers matter but there are a few anomalies: a single fort trumps any number of settlements or scouts. A single settlement trumps any number of scouts. Not surprisingly, settlements and forts cost quite a bit more than scouts.
2) When an island is scored, players retrieve any settlements and forts they had on the island. However, scouts are instead placed on the island exploration tracks on the right of the board. At the end of the game, the value of each track is revealed and the player with the most scouts on each track wins those VPs (it's not totaly random, though. Players do have 1 or 2 opportunities to see the value of the huts). These points seem to amount to roughly 1/3 of the entire score, so this mini-game cannot go unnoticed.
3) Money is very scarce in the game. When a player goes to less than 4 gold, he/she must roll a die. That players gets the amount listed on the die, and all other players get that much +1. In other words, you never want the be the one to have to roll the die, because you are giving an advantage to the other players.
Overall, I quite liked the game. I was afraid it would feel like a Carcassonne clone, but it really doesn't. The exploration feeling is there, and the contest for islands and the island exploration tracks works really well. The randomness is important but suited to the theme. It does have a big problem though... it's way too long. This should have been a 1 hour game, but ours took over 2 hours. It simply doesn't stay fun for that period of time. I'm not sure if I'll ever get to play this again, but if I do I would want to try reducing the board size to see if it helped.
Theres a fun game in there, but it needs to be shorter.
(as for the session report, I was trailing for most of the game as one player consistently nabbed the best islands after others would worked hard to develop them and another player was quite sharp at spotting easy opportunities for quick points. I found myself being the money roller one most turns. I managed to send many of my scouts to the island exploration tracks and redeemed myself at the endgame. I still came in 3rd, but the scores were much closer than they had been.)
Next, I played the introductory scenario of Lock n' Load, Band of Brothers with Kozure (who goes regularly to these things, though the rest of our group does not). It's a simple little scenario which involves a small group of allies holed up in a few central buildings as the axis storms in with an equally small team on a random edge of the board. The goal is to be in possession of that central area by the end of 6 turns. I was doing a decent job of holding my own against Kozure (a much more experienced wargamer), and felt I had a chance of winning until the final turn when I did a very stupid thing: I grouped my forces into a large force and ran through open terrain to obliterate his forces in melee. The problem? As I crossed the open terrain, I gave him a beautiful opportunity to mow me down with opportunity fire. And that's what he did.
All in all, I quite enjoy this game. The rules for infantry combat are simple for this type of game, the box ships with a large number of scenarios, the unit count is low (making setup and takedown fast and easy, and making the scenarios easy to digest in short periods of time). It makes for a much more satisfying game than Memoir '44 from the point of view of experiencing a small scale battle with interesting winning conditions and varied scenarios, though Memoir clearly is simpler and has certain advantages of its own (most of them aesthetic).
Friday, September 28, 2007
The problem with card games... (Naval Battles, Plunder)
... is that their inherent randomness can bite you.
We played a couple of card based games this week, Naval Battles and Plunder.
Naval Battles is a game which reminds me of many other battle games, like Zero!, most CCGs and many take that! style games... You have your assets (the cards in play in front of you) and you use them as the vehicle to play effects on other player's assets. They might counter with a card of their own, you might modify your effect, etc, etc. In this case, we are dealing with WW2 naval warfare and each player controls a fleet of ships. Each ship has particular weapons. Players essentially take shots at other boats by matching the cards in their hands with the size of the guns they have available. The theming is further enhanced by 6 decks of nation specific ships (each reflecting the relative strengths/ weaknesses of the nation in the naval arena), a few nice formation vs weaponry rules, by an "air raid" mechanic which plays a significant role in the game and reasonably evocative card art. It's not too long, accomodates 2 to 6 and seems to play well. I was a little lukewarm to it, as I often am with this type of game, but all in all I would happily play again. One small complaint: The game forces players to do a lot of cross-referencing between the attack cards in their hands with the guns on the ships they have available. Unfortunately, the card design places this frequently used information on the right side of the card... and therefore hidden if you hold you hand of cards normally. Pretty small complaint. There is a partnership variant that sounds interesting.
If memory serves me well, Shemp and Luch each won a game. I played the French and did nothing to alter their reputation in naval warfare expertise.
Plunder is a game where everyone is a pirate looking for treasure. the cards are used to create an ever expanding play area. Pirate move along between ports, coastlines and open sea. Cities get sacked and ships get boarded. Sadly, our game this week was so full of highly improbable combinations of events that I can't help but feel I have no idea how it should play normally. It took a long time for any of us to draw any cards which opened up the starting layout. Shemp drew a ridiculous amount of "storm" cards (there is only one in the deck, but it is potentially disastrous and is the reshuffled into the deck) Luch got stuck in a corner, having a very difficult time getting out. On one turn, I drew 7-8 open sea tiles, making an enourmously long sraight which was difficult to navigate because of the movement mechanic.
It seemed to have nice ideas. Goods can be purchased at one port and resold at a profit. Enemy ships that get boarded yield big treasure, but you need a "friendly place" to trade it for cash. Ships can be upgraded, etc. For whatever reason, though, our session was surely far from ordinary. I will reserve judgement until I play it again at least once. At the very least, I think we should double the number of sea card used in the begining.
We played a couple of card based games this week, Naval Battles and Plunder.
Naval Battles is a game which reminds me of many other battle games, like Zero!, most CCGs and many take that! style games... You have your assets (the cards in play in front of you) and you use them as the vehicle to play effects on other player's assets. They might counter with a card of their own, you might modify your effect, etc, etc. In this case, we are dealing with WW2 naval warfare and each player controls a fleet of ships. Each ship has particular weapons. Players essentially take shots at other boats by matching the cards in their hands with the size of the guns they have available. The theming is further enhanced by 6 decks of nation specific ships (each reflecting the relative strengths/ weaknesses of the nation in the naval arena), a few nice formation vs weaponry rules, by an "air raid" mechanic which plays a significant role in the game and reasonably evocative card art. It's not too long, accomodates 2 to 6 and seems to play well. I was a little lukewarm to it, as I often am with this type of game, but all in all I would happily play again. One small complaint: The game forces players to do a lot of cross-referencing between the attack cards in their hands with the guns on the ships they have available. Unfortunately, the card design places this frequently used information on the right side of the card... and therefore hidden if you hold you hand of cards normally. Pretty small complaint. There is a partnership variant that sounds interesting.
If memory serves me well, Shemp and Luch each won a game. I played the French and did nothing to alter their reputation in naval warfare expertise.
Plunder is a game where everyone is a pirate looking for treasure. the cards are used to create an ever expanding play area. Pirate move along between ports, coastlines and open sea. Cities get sacked and ships get boarded. Sadly, our game this week was so full of highly improbable combinations of events that I can't help but feel I have no idea how it should play normally. It took a long time for any of us to draw any cards which opened up the starting layout. Shemp drew a ridiculous amount of "storm" cards (there is only one in the deck, but it is potentially disastrous and is the reshuffled into the deck) Luch got stuck in a corner, having a very difficult time getting out. On one turn, I drew 7-8 open sea tiles, making an enourmously long sraight which was difficult to navigate because of the movement mechanic.
It seemed to have nice ideas. Goods can be purchased at one port and resold at a profit. Enemy ships that get boarded yield big treasure, but you need a "friendly place" to trade it for cash. Ships can be upgraded, etc. For whatever reason, though, our session was surely far from ordinary. I will reserve judgement until I play it again at least once. At the very least, I think we should double the number of sea card used in the begining.
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