Friday Night Gaming: Cosmic Encounter, Toledo

February 6, 2009

Cosmic Encounter
We knew we would be missing Zach and since I had called dibs to play CE the first time we only had 5 players, I was all geared up to give the new FFG version a spin. But then Ian canceled (something about a lady friend asking him to take her to a concert...) and that brought us down to 4. Since I wouldn't be here the following week because of DunDraCon and Zach would be back after that, I decided to continue with the original plan and bring CE.

Merwin had already expressed his hated for CE, having played a couple of times back on college, but he was still willing to give it a go. And I thank him for that, because the new edition did nothing to change his opinion.

After a rules summary and game setup, we got started. The powers in play were Macron (Brian), Void (Merwin), Tick-Tock (Robert), and Masochist (me). It was interesting that we had 2 "alternative win condition" powers in the game, but I was thankful to have a time-limiting power like Tick-Tock in the game even though I feared it might win. FFG took the opportunity to tweak some classic powers and one of the things they did was give Macron 2 Consolation or Reward cards per ship instead of 1. Only getting one card due to their one-ship limitation was always a drawback and so I approve of this change. But it also helped Brian amass a very large hand. He played a Negotiate when I was attacking his home planet and wiped out my hand; I think he did the same to Robert.

As Masochist, I threw my ships into battle, not really caring if I lost, even against the Void. Since I could also win with 5 foreign bases colonies, I also didn't mind if I won, and I was doing ok in that department as well. Robert had depleted half of his timing tokens and also had a number of colonies. Merwin was likewise chugging along. At one point, we were tied at 3 colonies each with Brian at 2. And that was about when Brian's monster hand starting kicking in. He managed to get the Vulch flare, and used it to take the Macron flare from me,* and he never looked back. In other words, he won handily.

* I basically had the choice to either give it to him right away or dump my relatively good hand and then give it to him. I chose the former, hoping that it wouldn't make him too powerful. I was wrong.

We started a second game with Observer (Brian), Parasite (Merwin), Citadel (Robert), and Healer (me). With both Observer and Healer in the game, there were not any ships in the warp. And with Observer and Parasite, it seemed like most encounters had all four of us involved. Citadel didn't come into play. Robert played his cards, but I don't think he ever used them. It was simply too easy to avoid them by pointing the cone hyperspace gate at a planet without them. I don't remember the details, but I do recall that Merwin and I shared a win.

We didn't have any major problems with the rules, but a couple of cards did cause us problems. The description of the Wild Mind flare is very straight-forward and clear, yet the designation as "Main Player Only" and "Alliance" (as in, only during the alliance phase) made it seem almost completely useless. In my opinion, it should be "As any player" and "Any Phase" like Wild Void is (for example). The other card, which I cannot seem to find, had to do with "ships on the hyperspace gate," which would not seem to apply to defensive ships in the new game, since they aren't put on the defensive ring as they were in previous editions; this wording seemed odd to me and I'd like to see an official clarification.

Toledo
We actually started playing this before Robert arrived, but abandoned the game after only a few rounds in favor of Cosmic. We closed out the night by returning to Toledo.

Let me begin by admitting that I totally handed the game to Robert. I didn't pay close enough attention to the open victory points and thought I had the most when I made my game-ending move (getting my third pawn to the palace). I had 16. Robert had 17. But no one seemed to mind that much.

Toledo is what I call a "silent game." There wasn't much talking among the four of us, as we focused on our hands, counted out spaces on the board (there is a lot of counting), and contemplated our next move. There is player interaction--the game has duels after all--but after the interaction-fest that is CE, it felt quite subdued. I definitely felt a considerable amount of tension at the end (when I went for my failed blitz), but Brian already knew he wasn't going to win so he didn't have the same feeling (and didn't warn me of my mistake when I commented that Merwin was a threat, neglecting Robert). But he did say that he started liking the game once we started playing.

I felt that there was a distinct advantage to those who were able to draw duplicate movement cards, since that is the only way to take multiple actions in a turn. I had fewer traders on the board, which filled up sooner than I thought it would, and didn't get cards from other players. In general, we were very reluctant to give each other cards to use their traders, and I specifically avoided giving Brian any. I am reminded of China, in which there seems to be a disconnect between playing housing and playing emissaries, there seems to be a disconnect between placing trading tiles and other actions in Toledo. We just played our tiles until they were gone and went on to the rest of the game. I skipped a turn (or two?) to do something else and so didn't get as many tiles down.

There is enough strategy and tactics, as one would expect from Martin Wallace, but I don't know yet if the game was fun.