Friday Night Gaming: Notre Dame, Iliad, Get Bit
December 12, 2008
Zach couldn't make it, so that brought us down to five and gave us the opportunity to play a game that only handles up to five (which is common trait of "Euros").
Notre Dame
Because we knew this was coming to the table, Brian and I had a chance to read (and discuss) the rules before the game. Imagine that. Ian was late, so we started without him, but by the time we got through one round, he had eaten dinner and was ready to play. We aborted that game, reset the board for a five-player game, and jumped right in. To Ian's detriment, we didn't give him a run-down of the rules and he was "flying blind" for the first rounds.
But boy did Ian make a good run at the finish. With a loaded residence, which generatesvictory points prestige directly and the opportunity (to activate it twice), he would have blown by the leaders if he only had a coin to activate it a third time (by hiring the fool). Both he and Brian did a good job using the Park to generate extra prestige. Brian was going strong but faltered in the last era. I don't know what went wrong; I know that Merwin and I cut off his opportunity to grab messages, but I suspect that inopportune card draws blew his strategy.
If there is one flaw of the game, it is that a well laid plan can be blown by getting the wrong cards at the wrong time. However, this game needs the cards to prevent total over-analysis and optimal strategies from dominating (I'm looking at you, Puerto Rico). In pure card games (Hearts, Spades, etc.), the point is to do the best with the cards you are dealt. I'll gripe more about cards when I talk about Iliad, below. In Notre Dame, you have some control over your card choices and you can be saved by having the right card passed to you, but sometimes you just have to do the best you can with crap and hope you don't fall too far behind. I think that you don't so much make a plan as end up with a plan.
I ended up following a carriage plan, cruising around and (eventually) ending up with 8 messages. Unfortunately, this meant that I was perpetually short of cash and had to get coins with messages, but those only yielded a single prestige point each. Meanwhile Merwin had his bank cranking and got prestige through donating to Notre Dame. I managed to cut off the messages and was the only one who collected more than 4. Merwin might have been able to get one more for a complete set, but there isn't a special reward for such, so it probably wasn't worth it to him.
The plague rats are an interesting feature, as they give you something else to worry about. Countering them via the hospital and doctor doesn't yield any prestige, so it's a distraction from any plan you might have. Brian and Robert both got hit by the plague more then once. I avoided it until the very last turn.
The final count of prestige left Merwin and I tied for the win, but he handily beat me in the tie-breaker thanks to his abundant coin collection. I could point to half-dozen or more things I could have done that might have earned me that extra prestige for the win, but I can't say they would have not hurt me elsewhere. For example, I lost 2 prestige from being hit by the plague, but if I had put an influence cube into the hospital, I would not have not been able to get the message (1 prestige and 1 coin) that let me hire the Lady of the Court which gave me 6 prestige. So, I earned 5 extra prestige than if I had held back the plague. But maybe if I had done something else sooner, like picking up a rat message phase 3 of era 2 (or whatever), things might have been different.
And that's the beauty and agony of the game: balancing short-term opportunities and necessities with long-term strategy. And the cards will screw with both. I like this game, though it is a bit dry and perhaps a tiny bit too chaotic. Robert, who finished last barely behind Brian, but well behind the rest of us, didn't take to it, however, and he wasn't interested in another play. I don't know when this will be brought out again, but I hope it will.
Iliad
Many months ago, Merwin and I tried a two-player game of Iliad. It was just interesting enough for us to want to try again, especially since the two-player rules remove some elements.
Having read the rules (again) earlier in the day, I did my best trying to explain them. Even so, Brian (in particular, others might have had similar issues) couldn't grasp the difference between a Gorgon siege and a Thanatos siege. This was one of several times this night that I wanted to throw something at him. And I might have, had my right hand not been occupied. I throw like a girl in general, but with my left, I'm downright pathetic. He accused me of PMSing or something, which I probably was. Anyway...
Ian immediately jumped into a strong lead when he won the first siege and the 5-point Helen victory card. This was exacerbated by it being a Gorgon siege, meaning that he was the only one to earn VP that siege. Literally, he was half-way to victory after the first seige. He would then be able to maintain that lead throughout the game and win. He mentioned how grabbing this early lead was key to his strategy, and I think it was because he was able to skip or cruise through the next few sieges and build up his hand.
Most victory cards are worth 1 to 3 victory points, but the single Helen card is worth 5. She came up in the very first siege, which felt wrong. I thought that perhaps she should have been placed at the bottom of the victory deck, but could not find it in the rules. I just checked again now and the rules say nothing of doing this. However, I think it should be an official rule for two reasons:
Robert, I think, was the closest to catching up to Ian. Brian did just well enough to be in a king-making situation. Merwin was completely flustered and resorted to killing my units just to give himself something to do. Yes, the game was painful. At its core, Iliad is a take-that card game with interesting roshambo-like card interactions. Due to the chaos (not knowing what other people have), randomness (your card draw), and king-making opporunities, I don't think I'll ever request to play it again. But I still don't hate the game, and I might play it again (it might be better with 3 or 4) if the others were gung-ho about it.
Get Bit
I like light card games; I enjoy Fluxx, after all. But Get Bit is too light even for me. It has great, cute components with tiny plastic robots that you get to dissassemble. But since the game play is a guessing game of picking the card that you hope either matches no one else or matches a robot between you and the shark, there's just not enough there to hold my interest. And the winning condition is almost completely random, having more to do with luck than a tactical choice (since any choice you make is completely dependent upon the choices made by others). I won, but it felt completely hollow and pointless. Thankfully, it's fast.
Next week, Mare Nostrum (again!)
Zach couldn't make it, so that brought us down to five and gave us the opportunity to play a game that only handles up to five (which is common trait of "Euros").
Notre Dame
Because we knew this was coming to the table, Brian and I had a chance to read (and discuss) the rules before the game. Imagine that. Ian was late, so we started without him, but by the time we got through one round, he had eaten dinner and was ready to play. We aborted that game, reset the board for a five-player game, and jumped right in. To Ian's detriment, we didn't give him a run-down of the rules and he was "flying blind" for the first rounds.
But boy did Ian make a good run at the finish. With a loaded residence, which generates
If there is one flaw of the game, it is that a well laid plan can be blown by getting the wrong cards at the wrong time. However, this game needs the cards to prevent total over-analysis and optimal strategies from dominating (I'm looking at you, Puerto Rico). In pure card games (Hearts, Spades, etc.), the point is to do the best with the cards you are dealt. I'll gripe more about cards when I talk about Iliad, below. In Notre Dame, you have some control over your card choices and you can be saved by having the right card passed to you, but sometimes you just have to do the best you can with crap and hope you don't fall too far behind. I think that you don't so much make a plan as end up with a plan.
I ended up following a carriage plan, cruising around and (eventually) ending up with 8 messages. Unfortunately, this meant that I was perpetually short of cash and had to get coins with messages, but those only yielded a single prestige point each. Meanwhile Merwin had his bank cranking and got prestige through donating to Notre Dame. I managed to cut off the messages and was the only one who collected more than 4. Merwin might have been able to get one more for a complete set, but there isn't a special reward for such, so it probably wasn't worth it to him.
The plague rats are an interesting feature, as they give you something else to worry about. Countering them via the hospital and doctor doesn't yield any prestige, so it's a distraction from any plan you might have. Brian and Robert both got hit by the plague more then once. I avoided it until the very last turn.
The final count of prestige left Merwin and I tied for the win, but he handily beat me in the tie-breaker thanks to his abundant coin collection. I could point to half-dozen or more things I could have done that might have earned me that extra prestige for the win, but I can't say they would have not hurt me elsewhere. For example, I lost 2 prestige from being hit by the plague, but if I had put an influence cube into the hospital, I would not have not been able to get the message (1 prestige and 1 coin) that let me hire the Lady of the Court which gave me 6 prestige. So, I earned 5 extra prestige than if I had held back the plague. But maybe if I had done something else sooner, like picking up a rat message phase 3 of era 2 (or whatever), things might have been different.
And that's the beauty and agony of the game: balancing short-term opportunities and necessities with long-term strategy. And the cards will screw with both. I like this game, though it is a bit dry and perhaps a tiny bit too chaotic. Robert, who finished last barely behind Brian, but well behind the rest of us, didn't take to it, however, and he wasn't interested in another play. I don't know when this will be brought out again, but I hope it will.
Iliad
Many months ago, Merwin and I tried a two-player game of Iliad. It was just interesting enough for us to want to try again, especially since the two-player rules remove some elements.
Having read the rules (again) earlier in the day, I did my best trying to explain them. Even so, Brian (in particular, others might have had similar issues) couldn't grasp the difference between a Gorgon siege and a Thanatos siege. This was one of several times this night that I wanted to throw something at him. And I might have, had my right hand not been occupied. I throw like a girl in general, but with my left, I'm downright pathetic. He accused me of PMSing or something, which I probably was. Anyway...
Ian immediately jumped into a strong lead when he won the first siege and the 5-point Helen victory card. This was exacerbated by it being a Gorgon siege, meaning that he was the only one to earn VP that siege. Literally, he was half-way to victory after the first seige. He would then be able to maintain that lead throughout the game and win. He mentioned how grabbing this early lead was key to his strategy, and I think it was because he was able to skip or cruise through the next few sieges and build up his hand.
Most victory cards are worth 1 to 3 victory points, but the single Helen card is worth 5. She came up in the very first siege, which felt wrong. I thought that perhaps she should have been placed at the bottom of the victory deck, but could not find it in the rules. I just checked again now and the rules say nothing of doing this. However, I think it should be an official rule for two reasons:
- It prevents someone from jumping out to a strong lead, as Ian did in our game.
- The 5 VP would allow more players to vie for the win. In the race to 12, it would allow players with only 6 VP a chance at winning (winning a siege earns the Agamemnon tile, worth 1 VP).
Robert, I think, was the closest to catching up to Ian. Brian did just well enough to be in a king-making situation. Merwin was completely flustered and resorted to killing my units just to give himself something to do. Yes, the game was painful. At its core, Iliad is a take-that card game with interesting roshambo-like card interactions. Due to the chaos (not knowing what other people have), randomness (your card draw), and king-making opporunities, I don't think I'll ever request to play it again. But I still don't hate the game, and I might play it again (it might be better with 3 or 4) if the others were gung-ho about it.
Get Bit
I like light card games; I enjoy Fluxx, after all. But Get Bit is too light even for me. It has great, cute components with tiny plastic robots that you get to dissassemble. But since the game play is a guessing game of picking the card that you hope either matches no one else or matches a robot between you and the shark, there's just not enough there to hold my interest. And the winning condition is almost completely random, having more to do with luck than a tactical choice (since any choice you make is completely dependent upon the choices made by others). I won, but it felt completely hollow and pointless. Thankfully, it's fast.
Next week, Mare Nostrum (again!)
Labels: Other Games
posted by Patrick at 10:30 AM
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