Friday Night Gaming: Wizard's Quest, Power Grid, Clans
April 10, 2009
With Merwin out of town to celebrate Vampire Day* with in-laws, we gathered at Brian's place this week. Mid-week, it was looking we would have 7 for gaming, but come Friday night, we only had myself, Ian, Robert, and of course, Brian.
Wizard's Quest
As Brian said, it was his house, so he got to pick the first game. And since he doesn't own any games less than 20 years old, he pulled out this Avalon Hill classic. Ian was the last to arrive and missed most of the rules explanation, but the game is pretty straight forward. Unfortunately, Ian made an early strategic error when placing Brian's treasures and made them too easy for him to get. For his part, Brian was last to pick his starting position and seemingly got the worst position. I put my castle on one far end of the board while Ian (the first to pick) had a prime central position. Robert was wedged below Ian and between Brian's scattered territories.
Despite his bad position, Brian was able to get a second castle and build up his forces. Meanwhile, I was hammered by orcs, the dragon, and Robert (though the Great Tunnel). My card draws were pretty bad too, twice losing men and only getting moderate benefits from the others. The only time I was able to muster a large force and get my first (and closest) treasure, they were decimated when I attempted to take over an orc-occupied castle.
Ian started with the most contiguous territories and ended the game that way too. Despite his superior numbers, he wasn't able to make great progress on capturing treasures. Robert hung in there, certainly doing better than me, but he seemed too hemmed in to make progress. That left Brian, the only one of us who had played before, able to sweep in and snatch all his treasures for the win.
We agreed that it was a good, but not great, game and we'd be willing to play again.
Power Grid
I've had this game since Rio Grande published the first English edition (complete with a few annoying typos). The only time I played it, long ago with Merwin and Gordon**, I screwed up the rules. I've been wanting to pull it out again, but it's not a Merwin-compatible game. Sure, he'd be a trooper and play, but it's not his cup of tea. After playing it with the four of us, it was agreed by all that adding Merwin, an hour would be added to the game duration.
Because of my earlier errors, I spent much of Friday afternoon pouring over the rules and making a one-page rules summary. I find that making my own cheat sheets greatly helps my understanding of the game. It highlights what I don't know and forces me to get all the little details and easily-forgotten rules correct. And there are plenty of those in Power Grid, whose rule book is written in such a way that I'm often left baffled at what it's trying to say.***
After stumbling through setup and a rules overview, we began the first auction. At its core, Power Grid is more about the auction of power plants than creating the network of connected cities. Because of this, there is certainly a learning curve that demands multiple replays. Knowing when to buy new plants, upgrade old ones, and how much to pay is critical. And because the plants come out in a random order after the first round, you have to decide whether to take what's available now or wait for something better. This particular point was my failing this game.
We were playing on the northern regions of the Germany map. Ian had the west, I had the east, Brian was in the middle, and Robert was wedged into the north-west. When Step 2 began and we are able double-up on cities, Brian jumped into Ian's territory with its cheaper connection rates, much to Robert's consternation. We did manage to hem Ian in, forcing him to pay for an expensive expansion. However, this did not impact Ian's funds all that much; he was flush with cash entering the final stage of the game.
During Step 1, Ian was consistently in the lead whereas I tended to be at the tail end. At Step 2, I expanded and captured the lead. Just before the end, Ian purposely sandbagged to be in last place. This allowed him to buy resources and build connections first. It worked well for him.
I was too conservative in my plant purchases. Hell, I ended the game with the 07 plant. Brian and Robert had both wind and nuclear plants, which limited their total capacity. Ian had the largest capacity (and only garbage-burning plant) at 15 cities. So once we were able to have 3 players occupy each city, he went on a spending spree, connecting 6 (iirc) cities at once, bringing his total to 17, and triggering the end-game. Since we couldn't match his capacity, it was a well-deserved, if anti-climatic ending.
Brian and Ian really enjoyed the game. Robert was less enthralled but agreed to play again. I really like the game and know I have much to learn, especially about auctions and cash flow.
Clans
After the 3-hour Power Grid game, a light closer was needed. Robert went home early, so the 3 of us took on "the huts game." Ian had never played, yet managed to kick our asses. It was a weird game, with a lot more village-building than our previous games. Brian was picking up tokens and I was trying to catch up. But neither of us did much for our secret clan color. No matter what I did, I just couldn't seem to advance my color (red) without also advancing blue, green, and/or yellow. Brian's black was lagging even further behind. That left Ian the clear winner.
*: Why I call Easter this is left as an exercise to the reader.
**: A long-absent member of the group.
***: (4/11) As as it was, I just discovered that I screwed up the setup, neglecting to remove 4 power plants from the deck. This had the result of making Step 2 last a few turns longer. Since the game ended so quickly once Step 3 began, I'm sure that my error had an effect on who won. I'm not saying that Ian wouldn't have won, but his blitz-ending probably would not have happened the way it did.
With Merwin out of town to celebrate Vampire Day* with in-laws, we gathered at Brian's place this week. Mid-week, it was looking we would have 7 for gaming, but come Friday night, we only had myself, Ian, Robert, and of course, Brian.
Wizard's Quest
As Brian said, it was his house, so he got to pick the first game. And since he doesn't own any games less than 20 years old, he pulled out this Avalon Hill classic. Ian was the last to arrive and missed most of the rules explanation, but the game is pretty straight forward. Unfortunately, Ian made an early strategic error when placing Brian's treasures and made them too easy for him to get. For his part, Brian was last to pick his starting position and seemingly got the worst position. I put my castle on one far end of the board while Ian (the first to pick) had a prime central position. Robert was wedged below Ian and between Brian's scattered territories.
Despite his bad position, Brian was able to get a second castle and build up his forces. Meanwhile, I was hammered by orcs, the dragon, and Robert (though the Great Tunnel). My card draws were pretty bad too, twice losing men and only getting moderate benefits from the others. The only time I was able to muster a large force and get my first (and closest) treasure, they were decimated when I attempted to take over an orc-occupied castle.
Ian started with the most contiguous territories and ended the game that way too. Despite his superior numbers, he wasn't able to make great progress on capturing treasures. Robert hung in there, certainly doing better than me, but he seemed too hemmed in to make progress. That left Brian, the only one of us who had played before, able to sweep in and snatch all his treasures for the win.
We agreed that it was a good, but not great, game and we'd be willing to play again.
Power Grid
I've had this game since Rio Grande published the first English edition (complete with a few annoying typos). The only time I played it, long ago with Merwin and Gordon**, I screwed up the rules. I've been wanting to pull it out again, but it's not a Merwin-compatible game. Sure, he'd be a trooper and play, but it's not his cup of tea. After playing it with the four of us, it was agreed by all that adding Merwin, an hour would be added to the game duration.
Because of my earlier errors, I spent much of Friday afternoon pouring over the rules and making a one-page rules summary. I find that making my own cheat sheets greatly helps my understanding of the game. It highlights what I don't know and forces me to get all the little details and easily-forgotten rules correct. And there are plenty of those in Power Grid, whose rule book is written in such a way that I'm often left baffled at what it's trying to say.***
After stumbling through setup and a rules overview, we began the first auction. At its core, Power Grid is more about the auction of power plants than creating the network of connected cities. Because of this, there is certainly a learning curve that demands multiple replays. Knowing when to buy new plants, upgrade old ones, and how much to pay is critical. And because the plants come out in a random order after the first round, you have to decide whether to take what's available now or wait for something better. This particular point was my failing this game.
We were playing on the northern regions of the Germany map. Ian had the west, I had the east, Brian was in the middle, and Robert was wedged into the north-west. When Step 2 began and we are able double-up on cities, Brian jumped into Ian's territory with its cheaper connection rates, much to Robert's consternation. We did manage to hem Ian in, forcing him to pay for an expensive expansion. However, this did not impact Ian's funds all that much; he was flush with cash entering the final stage of the game.
During Step 1, Ian was consistently in the lead whereas I tended to be at the tail end. At Step 2, I expanded and captured the lead. Just before the end, Ian purposely sandbagged to be in last place. This allowed him to buy resources and build connections first. It worked well for him.
I was too conservative in my plant purchases. Hell, I ended the game with the 07 plant. Brian and Robert had both wind and nuclear plants, which limited their total capacity. Ian had the largest capacity (and only garbage-burning plant) at 15 cities. So once we were able to have 3 players occupy each city, he went on a spending spree, connecting 6 (iirc) cities at once, bringing his total to 17, and triggering the end-game. Since we couldn't match his capacity, it was a well-deserved, if anti-climatic ending.
Brian and Ian really enjoyed the game. Robert was less enthralled but agreed to play again. I really like the game and know I have much to learn, especially about auctions and cash flow.
Clans
After the 3-hour Power Grid game, a light closer was needed. Robert went home early, so the 3 of us took on "the huts game." Ian had never played, yet managed to kick our asses. It was a weird game, with a lot more village-building than our previous games. Brian was picking up tokens and I was trying to catch up. But neither of us did much for our secret clan color. No matter what I did, I just couldn't seem to advance my color (red) without also advancing blue, green, and/or yellow. Brian's black was lagging even further behind. That left Ian the clear winner.
*: Why I call Easter this is left as an exercise to the reader.
**: A long-absent member of the group.
***: (4/11) As as it was, I just discovered that I screwed up the setup, neglecting to remove 4 power plants from the deck. This had the result of making Step 2 last a few turns longer. Since the game ended so quickly once Step 3 began, I'm sure that my error had an effect on who won. I'm not saying that Ian wouldn't have won, but his blitz-ending probably would not have happened the way it did.
Labels: Other Games
posted by Patrick at 6:45 PM
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