Friday Night Gaming: Maharaja, Razzia!

October 2, 2009


Maharaja: Palace Building in India
There is something annoying about a game which requires planning three turns ahead yet still has considerable player-interference chaos. Merwin had trouble wrapping his head around it and thus “hated it.” I was in the same boat, but deluded myself into thinking I was doing better than I was. Robert did a good job staying low and ending very strong. Brian and Ian were the front-runners and in the final round, we knew Ian would win but couldn’t stop him.

Razzia!
Short Version:
We aborted the first game because I missed a rule. Merwin declared he hated the game and proceeded to win.

Longer Version:
When Merwin says, “I'll also have the English instructions for Razzia! printed up” he does not mean that he will have read the English instructions. Or have printed them up. So, the burden of explaining the rules fell upon me again, and I missed a one-line rule that is critical to the proper functioning of the game. When a Razzia (Cop) card is turned over, it triggers an auction. When the 7th shows up, the round ends. I thought the round ended when everyone had used their bidding cheques. Oops.

Auction games are tough, especially when you aren’t sure what things are worth. In Razzia!, bidding is done via cheques valued 1 to 16. What comes up is based on the random draw from deck; there will be 0 to 7 items to bid plus the cheque from the previous auction. You get points for collecting the right sets and lose points if you have the fewest or none of certain cards. Some items carry over from round-to-round while others are discarded. You can only win at most 3 auctions and cheques won in an auction are what you use to bid in the next round. There is a lot to consider, many different dynamics in play, and a press-your-luck element to boot.

Merwin won despite never feeling he knew what he was doing. It might have helped that Brian and Ian were seen as the frontrunners. For my own part, I lost horribly.

Friday Night Gaming: Conquest of the Fallen Lands, Mare Nostrum

September 25, 2009

Friday morning, my RAID 1 external hard drive crashed. I no longer had (and continue not to have as of this post) access to my superhero game files and was unable to conduct playtesting as I had hoped and promised. So, it was board games again.

Conquest of the Fallen Lands
I came in last on this one, but the overall scores were closer than our first game. Unlike my first game, where I traded in cards 2-for-1 and ended up stalling out for lack of cards at the end, I decided to use what I got while getting sorcerers early so that I’d get more cards later on. My hand was dominated by higher-cost troops and they all required craftsmen. For example, I had 2 cannons and 1 catapult, which are great cards if you can get them on the board. Since they cost 4 and 3 craftsmen, respectively, I wasn’t able to field them until late. By then, my forces were split and I didn’t have access to the juicy parts of the board. In the mid-game, I was dying for some low-cost spearmen that I could deploy.

A key element to the game is being able to maximize your resources and capture 2 or 3 hexes in a single turn. Not only does it give you a jump on the opposition, but it gives you the most money for minimal cost. You can achieve this by deploying multiple types of troops and/or opportune use of spells, which can boost an attack.

The end game was soured a bit by kingmaking with Brian and Merwin deciding whether to hurt Robert or Ian. In the end, Ian ran out of the cards he needed and Robert was able to end the game early (when everyone passed, trying to build their hands) for a close win.

Mare Nostrum
It was just past nine o’clock when we pulled this out. We went well past midnight, in part, because it took us a while to remember how to set up and play. After an initial random deal of starting civilizations, Robert and I both called fowl when he and I ended up with Rome and Babylon (again), and we re-dealt. He got Greece and I got Egypt. Brian was Carthage (much to his dismay because it begs to be played militarily), Merwin Rome, and Ian Babylon.

While everyone took their first turns, I desperately tried to remember the trick to having Egypt win on the 3rd turn. I then had to convince them that I wouldn’t do it and thus make myself a very early target. During the “expand a few territories out” phase of the game, Brian and I came face to face. And in an uncharacteristic move, I attacked him before he could attack me. I had already decided to use my mythical creature, the Phoenix, as much as possible. Normally, these units cost 6 resources to deploy. Once killed, however, the Phoenix can return for only 3, the same cost as a legion or trireme. Sacrificing my Phoenix against Brian’s inevitable counter-attack was part of my plan.

As the game progressed, Merwin threatened Robert, Robert threatened Merwin, and Ian was left alone to catch a considerable lead. Ultimately, this game is won or lost during the trading phase. The goal is to buy 3 heroes and/or monuments, which cost either a set of 9 commodities (with no duplicates) or 9 tax cards. If you manage to get 12, you can buy the Pyramids and win straight-away. After the first expansion turn, it’s not uncommon for people to be collecting 9 resource cards each turn. The trick is to use the trading phase to dump your duplicates, pick up ones you don’t have, or convert them all to taxes. And it is a trick. It’s easy to mess up and pick the wrong cards from the wrong people. It’s easy for the other players to not notice what you’re collecting and pull a stealth win.

For my own part, people were preventing me from getting too many taxes, which meant I never got a set of 9 until the very last turn of the game. Ian claimed he screwed up and failed to get the 12 uniques for an insta-win. On a different turn, Robert was close with 11 taxes. Since we knew Ian was a major threat, we started watching him like a hawk and colluded against him during the trading. Eventually, whether to fatigue or kingmaking, I managed to get 14 taxes and built the Pyramids (it helped that I was the Political Leader, and so got to build first). Basically, I pulled off my “three-turn win” three hours into the game.

Part of the problem we have as a group is that too many cards get traded. The lowest this game as six and we traded nine more than once. Paradoxically, this lengthens the game by dragging out the trading phase, but it also allows for insta-wins that bring an abrupt end to the game. If we only traded three cards each, getting the magical twelve would be much harder. You’d still have to watch for Egypt (and Greece) getting too many taxes (and buying the favor of Hermes has to be watched, too), but I think we’d see more victories that didn’t involve the Pyramids. The advanced rules set the price of the Pyramids at 13, which is a must, I think.

Friday Night Gaming: Flaschenteufel

September 18, 2009
Brian wasn't with us. We spent 3 hours working on character creation for a superhero game I'm running and playtesting for the group. Thankfully, the time was mostly thinking of character concepts rather than game mechanics. I had hoped to start a scenario, but I knew it would have been too much. So instead, we brought a new game to the table.

Flaschenteufel aka, The Bottle Imp
This is an interesting point trick-taking game using a special deck of 36 cards of 3 suits (red, blue, and yellow). The cards are numbered 1 to 37 (with no 19) and this card shows how the suits are distributed. Cards have a point value of 1 to 6, with higher-numbered cards being worth more than lower-numbered cards. After all the cards are dealt (it handles 2 to 4 players), each player takes one card, places it aside in a kitty, then passes one card to the left and one card to the right. The first trick is lead by the person to the left of the dealer.

Each player in turn must play a card that matches the suit of the lead card. If they cannot, they can play any card. Ian was sure that he screwed up by not following suit when he could. And I'm sure others make the same mistake as well. We took to asking "You don't have any (color)?" when they didn't follow suit just to double-check.

There are no trump suits, but who actually wins the trick is a bit complicated to explain and we were making mistakes throughout the game. There is a bottle (containing an imp and represented by a wooden piece in our version) that starts out with a value of 19. If all the cards played to the trick are above the value of the bottle, the highest card wins the trick. If any cards are under the value of the bottle, then the highest card that is lower than the value of the bottle wins the trick. And the trick winner gets the bottle, places it on the card that won the trick, and that card becomes the new value of the bottle.

Thus, the bottle changes hands as its value drops. After all the cards have been played, the player with the bottle scores negative points equal to the point value of the cards in the kitty. All the other players score points equal to the point value of the cards in the tricks they took.

It took me several hands to get the hang of the game. Here is what I learned:

• Playing high cards early is not a good idea. Your 37 is unbeatable unless someone plays a card under the bottle value. It's probably best to save your high cards until the bottle value can't be undercut any more.
• You want to win tricks and often the best or only way to do that is to take the bottle. This is good, but you have to have an exit plan. You have to know what low cards are still out there for someone else to take the bottle from you.
• Once someone has played under the bottle value, you can play your low cards, safely dumping them under the card that will win the trick. You want to minimize these opportunities for your opponents.
• Being stuck with the bottle at the end may not be that bad. Hopefully, people got rid of low cards, so you only lose a few points. Usually, you can make up for the lost points, and more, if you do well the next hand. The value of the kitty is usually 12 to 16 (very approximately), whereas you might pick up 20 to 40 points in a hand.
  
• Card counting is very difficult. Keeping track of suits is practically impossible; it's simply too easy for someone to void a suit. However, it really helps to know what low and high cards are still out there. For example, you can take the bottle with a 4 if you know that the 1, 2, or 3 are still out there. They will eventually have to take it from you. And this segues into...
  
• Sometimes you're just screwed. As in Hearts, the deal and card passing can conspire against you and force you to lose. In one hand, Robert held the 1 through 8 (iirc), which guaranteed that he'd be stuck with the bottle. The best he could do is to deny as many tricks from the rest of us as he could.
  

It is that last point that sours me a bit on this game. I still like it and would definitely play it again (if we can convince Robert to play), but there will simply be those hands when no amount of skill or finesse will save you. I can definitely see where the game can become frustrating in the same way Spades can if you keep missing your bid or taking overtrick penalties.

The rules didn't give a definite ending point. They suggest a pre-determined number of hands or a set number of points (they said 500). We played to 200 (decided after we started playing and when I was away from the table). Ian and I ended with 196, Merwin had exactly 200, and Robert was down at 89.

Friday Night Gaming: Conquest of the Fallen Lands, War on Terror

September 11, 2009
After taking a week off for Pacificon, the usual suspects got back together for a couple of games. This summary comes late because I found myself writing full reviews of the games which I then decided to excise.

Conquest of the Fallen Lands
I've been eyeing this game for a while, so when I heard that Merwin had picked it up, I immediately requested it. This is an area control game with a medieval theme. Among the points in its favor is a randomly generated playing field, quick game play, no direct player conflict but lots of indirect conflict, and no randomness beyond the cards you draw. There are two versions of the rules: the basic game and the advanced game. We chose the basic game because the online comments (follow link, above) indicated that it was faster, better for more players (we had 5), and less prone to analysis paralysis. In the future, we may try the advanced game, but I'm very happy with the basic game.

Though heavy on tactics, early decisions on which followers to recruit(soldiers, craftsmen, or wizards) can affect your overall strategy. For my part, I was dealt a beginning hand with powerful spells which needed 3 wizards to use. Since I could only recruit 1 follower per turn, I simply couldn't afford it. I jettisoned my magic-based cards and ended with a hand very dependent on soldiers and craftsmen. This trend continued until the last turns of the game. However, without wizards, I was drawing fewer cards, which limited my options and ability to expand in the end-game.

Ian and I started in the middle of the board while Merwin, Brian, and Robert were on the edges. Somehow, Ian and I expanded in two different directions and weren't in conflict with each other. He did, however, ended up fighting for territory with the other three. His craftsmen-centric force was a clear threat while Brian and Merwin had a ton of cards. I won a squeaker, mostly because I was left alone.

War on Terror
Being that it was "nine-eleven" and all, Merwin had threatened to pull out this game. And he did. I managed to read the primary rule book, but not the one that details what all the cards do, not realizing that it also explained how some of the major actions, like declaring war, work. We worked our way through the vagueness of some key rules and even forgot a semi-major one that might have helped me during the two times I was (randomly) declared the Axis of Evil.

I respect the game for what it is. It's like Risk combined with Settlers of Catan (except there is only one resource: oil). In addition to the player units, there are also neutral terrorist units which can be deployed in enemy territory. So while sponsoring terrorists are the only way to strike at opponents when you don't share a common border, other players can use those same terrorists against you later on. Thematically, it's clever and as a 90-minute game, it would be a gem. But it took the 5 of us over 3 hours. By then, we were practically begging for it to end.

Brian started in North America, which ended up having the best (randomly distributed) oil reserves by far. Ian started in South America, but was wiped out early when Robert nuked him. Ian then took over as "the Terrorist Player" but was perhaps too cash-strapped to use them effectively. I spend most of my time in Africa and Southern Europe. Robert focused on Asia and Eastern Europe. Merwin focused on Australia and Nowhere (Antarctica); he was the second player to "turn terrorist," though I still don't know exactly why he did it.

In a key point (for me), I had a card which would cost another player money (120 to 180 Million). I told Brian and Robert that I wouldn't use it on the player who payed me the most. Brian bid 50 mil. Robert threatened retaliation. I played the card on Robert. He nuked me the next turn. But he was kind: he only took out my European holdings (including by best city) rather than the entire African continent. I was able to recover, but Brian was already well on his way to victory.

Actions are card-driven. The number of development actions is based on a die roll. Combat is based on dice. Resource location is random and which regions pay out each turn is based on dice. There are both strategic and tactical decisions, but too much is out of your control. As I said, shorter would be better. As it is, I think Merwin will trade it.

Modular China

When playing China last Friday, I had a notion to make the map modular, to randomize the setup for each game. In general, I love the concept of modular boards for games and any game with random tile setup automatically gets a bump in my interest level. In both games last time, I ended up playing houses in very similar places, which is something that random setup helps avoid. A fan did something very similar for Power Grid, so it's not a radical idea.

To begin my toying around with the idea, I looked for a modular variant that someone might have already done. Not finding one, I went about understanding the characteristics of the existing map. There are actually two maps (not counting variants like Border Disputes): one for 3-4 players, and one for 4-5. I don't really understand why there has to be two different maps, though I appreciate that they would play differently. This is, after all, one of the goals for having a modular board. I just couldn't tell you why one is better for 3 and the other better for 5. The maps have an identical arrangement of cities and regions and the only difference is how the roads are connected. To help me conceptualize the differences, I recreated the two maps into one, using a grid-based format.



I don't know if this exercise taught me anything, but now that you can see the map, I'll note some of my observations which influenced how I made the tiles.

There are 5 colors and 9 regions in the game. Most regions have 4-7 cities; purple has 8, but there is only 1 purple region. There are no 4-way intersections in the 3-4 player game, and only 3 with 4-5 players. There are plenty of dead-ends. In some regions, all the houses are connected while in others, you can't make a path between them without entering some other territory.

Looking at the regions and their colors, it is clear that they aren't "equal" (purple being a prime example), but each color as the same number of cards. China, like the original Web of Power, is inspired by real-world geography (though I'm doubtful how closely China follows actual geography). But when thinking about an abstract, modularized version, how should the asymmetry be generated? I have "an overdeveloped sense of symmetry" and automatically want to make each region and color equivalent in some way.

I settled on the idea of having 1 tile per region, 2 of each color. From there, I decided to make 6 cities per region/tile with the option to change that later. Though I am still inclined to make the total number of cities per color to be equal, I admit that I don't have a good reason to do it that way.

I prefer hexes because they tessellate well and arranging 6 cities is easy to do. I started with a basic pattern of 7 cities, then removed 1. (The following diagram presented in lovely Courier because Blogger can't handle preformatted text tags.)

..O...O...........O...O...........O...O..

O...O...O.......O...X...O.......O...O...O

..O...O...........O...O...........X...O..

I decided that each color would have 1 tile with the center missing and 1 tile with the edge city missing. I then had to create 5 patterns of roads for each tile type. Of course, there are far more than 5 ways to connect 6 cities, so I had to make some rules for myself. And my "had" I mean, I'd never be able to decide which patterns to use unless I had a set of rules for me to follow. With that in mind, each city could connect only to it's closest neighbors. No tile would allow for a 6-city road. And there would always be paths leading out from the corners to the adjacent tile. Even with the rules, there were plenty of arbitrary decisions.

Working with hex tiles on your typical drawing program (I use OpenOffice) is a pain. Oo has a great feature which allows you to set the vertical and horizontal grid to different spacing, which you can use to create the 1:0.866 ratio of a hexagon length:width. But to hash out my ideas, I went with squares instead. When laid in an overlapping brick format, you can get them to approximate hexes.



The tile in the lower left is my template. The diagram in the lower right shows how they should be laid out. After printing and cutting out the tiles, I noted the need for the arrows so that they could be oriented properly. Hexes rotate 60°, 120°, or 180°; when using squares to approximate hexes, you only get 0° or 180°.

I played around with some tile arrangements and noted that there was a tendency to be too many stragglers along the edges. Several of the edge tiles had 1 to 3 cities that weren't connected to anything (or each other). In China, there are no islands--all cities connect eventually. Web of Power, you have England, which is a 5-city island. I don't mind islands, but because road-building is such an important part of the two-pronged strategy of placing houses and roads only count if they are 4-cities, having small islands is unacceptable. In some cases, you can simply remove those isolated cities from play (since we have 60 cities rather than China's 51), but in others, this created regions with fewer than 4 cities (another unacceptable situation).

I'm not sure it is possible to create tiles in such a way as to prevent these problems, at least without very convoluted placement rules . One thought is to allow islands, but make them their own region for scoring purposes, similar to the harbors from Border Disputes. But this still doesn't solve the road issue. Or I could add a frame around the 10 tiles that allows the edge cities to be connected, but it gets a bit wonky around the corners and breaks the "only connect to closest city" rule. And it still doesn't address any islands that appear in the middle.

Overall, it was a project with mixed success. I still think they concept has merit, but there are obviously kinks that need to be worked out.

Aside 1: When randomly arranging the tiles, what should be done when two tiles of the same color are adjacent? You can either arrange them so that this doesn't happen or let them be one single region (like purple in the original). I think this is something that would need to be shaken out during playtesting.

Aside 2: Yes, I know the red and orange are awfully close to each other. I would have changed it, except I'm paying homage to the fact that red and orange are hard to distinguish in the original game. Yeah, that's it. ;)

Friday Night Gaming: China, Tongiaki, Let's Kill

August 28, 2009
Ok, where was I? Right. I seem to have gotten a tad behind.

China
Merwin bailed on running Bones, so I asked if I could bring something over. Brian objected to Snow Tails, so I brought China. During the setup, Ian chose purple rather than his usual green and that started a cascade of people picking a color they normally don't use. For example, Robert is always red. Always. Well, except this time, when he was yellow and Brian was red. Damned if that didn't screw me up a couple of times. Fortunately, you usually don't have to worry about who is what color as much as what colors besides yours are in a given territory.

Given our past experiences (found here, but lacking details), I went in with a strategy to use the emissaries more. In China, there are 3 ways to score: place houses to get majorities in territories, place houses to get long roads, and place emissaries to get majorities in adjacent territories. So as you can see right away, placing houses has greater utility. Furthermore, while second, third, etc. house majorities can get you points, only the first majority (ties count) for emissaries get points and you have to get it in two territories (and you can only ever place pieces, houses or emissaries, in one territory per turn). So, emissaries can feel like an add-on, something you only do when placing more houses isn't an option. This is what our first games felt like.

To explore emissaries, I focused first on getting second majorities and a decent road, using my fortress to double my best scoring opportunity, and then shifted to emissaries. Because everyone else was mostly on a house-focused strategy, trying to get first majorities, I managed to score a hefty 20 points on emissaries, which shot me to an overwhelming victory.

We played again and I noticed something peculiar: my houses ended up in very similar locations and my fortress was on the exact same spot as before. I also spent many of my turns not using my cards optimally, using doubles as jokers rather than placing twice; I believe this might have been a mistake, but since I finished 2 points being Brian, maybe it wasn't so bad. I didn't go for emissaries, but kept my eye on preventing anyone from doing what I had done last game. It ended up being a very close close game, with Brian getting the edge (and he had the most emissaries).

Overall, I really enjoy this game. It has tough decisions, tactical maneuvering, controlled randomness, and plays quickly. Merwin seemed to have a hard time "wrapping his head around it," and I think he meant coming up with a winning strategy, so I'm not sure when we'll play again.

Tongiaki
Merwin pulled this out so that he could play it and decide whether or not to keep it. The game is about exploring and establishing colonies on Polynesian islands. Unfortunately, our first game was marred by a playing aid that implied we only got points for having one ship on an island tile and it failed to mention that the number on the tile (2 to 5) was its point value. Brian won the first game; Merwin won the second. Both times, I tied with someone and was either second or second-to-last.

The random tile draws make the early game, well, random. Once enough tiles get on the board, things become more predictable. In fact, it is so mechanistic to be almost abstract. But multi-player abstract games tend to be very chaotic, and this is no exception. There are plenty of opportunities for clever play, setting up move combinations and spreading your ships far and wide, but they can also be undone by your opponent's moves. Even if they didn't intend for it to happen that way.

During the game, I was reminded of Girl Genius, I game I own but have never played. But writing the above made me think of Mall of Horror, I game I don't own, but adore. The difference is that the simultaneous action selection of Mall of Horror brings a second-guessing element and mitigates the "my move will be negated by the 4 other players following me" aspect. As it is, Tongiaki is not without interest, but the lack of control (especially compared to China) bothers me.

Let's Kill
Speaking of lack of control... this is yet another cute, chaotic, humor-based card game without any strategic value. Even the tactics are boring because the card selection is so random and samey. Either you get the cards that let you win, or you don't. There's no room for clever play and the decisions aren't interesting. It's still better than Munchkin, though.

Friday Night Gaming: Manilla, Betrayal

August 21, 2009
There was no game last week due to Merwin scheduling problems. Were were supposed to play Bones, but that fell through as well.

Manila
Brian won this one handily by going into debt, leveraging his existing shares to become the Harbor Master and buy more shares. This works because at the end of the game, each of his leveraged shares were worth 30, but he only lost 15 on each share. With more shares than anyone, this was too big of an advantage to overcome.

In general, I'm reluctant to go into debt in a game. It's my financial conservatism (some might say cowardice) at play here. Because I didn't poorly in the gambling aspect of the game, I didn't have enough cash to do anything useful. Even after I watched Brian leverage his shares, it just didn't feel right for me to follow suit.

Betrayal at House on the Hill
We had most of the house explored (though still hadn't found an exit from the basement that didn't require the Rope item) when the haunting started. We didn't check the errata and ended up assigning the role of traitor to the wrong person, in this case, me. It didn't really matter, but it's one of those errata/FAQ annoyances that often pop up in this game. Another was trying to figure out if the traitor could climb up from the basement to the Collapsed Room (without the rope); we decided he could.

I was the leader of a band of Cannibal "We're not zombies"Freaks. The objectives focused on the Heroes and the Traitor killing each other. This resulted in a scramble for weapons, which meant getting to the Safe and the Vault and exploring the last rooms for items. While Brian explored, Robert was going for the Vault, Ian was keeping the Victims (who had been tenderizing in the attic until now) safe in the Mystic Elevator, and Merwin was... being Merwin.

I had my Cannibals stake out the Foyer, which represented a choke point while I went after items and the Heroes. I got to the Safe and was able to use one-shot items to get the drop on Robert and take his stuff, which included the powerful Spear. Merwin sacrificed himself in the Foyer while Brian stayed in the basement. I then tracked down Ian, killed him, and won when the last the Victims were killed. Brian was still alive, but it didn't matter at that point.

Friday Night Gaming: Tales of the Arabian Nights, Neuroshima Hex!

August 7, 2009

Tales of the Arabian Nights
Merwin was psyched to play the new, improved edition from Z-Man Games. In addition to updating the graphics, the main difference in game play was adding a "destiny die," which is basically a Fudge die (two sides are blank, two are marked with "+", and two with "-"). This modifies the paragraph number you read, essentially tripling the number of different paragraphs and reducing the chance of getting a repeat. This is nice, but even in our one game, we got close to repeating a paragraph when two of us in succession encountered a "crafty sorceress." My favorite edition is the Status card, so that when your character becomes Blessed or Married or Wounded, the card clearly says what the effects are and you don't have to look them up and it reduces the chances you'll forget about them.

But I still don't like the game.

1) The paragraphs don't line up geographically with the game. In the final turn of the game, I was in Baghdad and drew the Ape Island card and suddenly I was being read a story about an island. Other players encountered lions in the middle of the sea, volcanoes in cities, etc. In a game this random, I'm willing to overlook this point.

2) They added quest cards, which give the players clear, optional goals. For example, you might have to visit three locations (chosen by other players) or find a treasure and bring it back to Baghdad. I like this. But some quests are clearly easier than others while giving the same or greater rewards in terms of earned story or destiny points, wealth levels, or status(es). In a game this random, I'm willing to overlook this point.

3) While there are optional "player versus player" rules, it's basically several players (5 in our case), sitting around a table, and passing around a giant "choose your own adventure book." It's a text adventure turned board game. But at least those books/games have a coherent story line, rather than thousands of random paragraphs that bear no connection to each other. I'm willing to overlook the randomness, but the game is too long, the stories too boring, and there is no reason (or desire on my part) to even pay attention to what someone else is doing.

The game ended up being very long and fairly close. I entered Baghdad two story points short of my goal and hoped I got a good encounter; otherwise, Ian would win on his turn. I got a lucky result, got my 2 points, and won. I've felt more accomplishment in games of tic-tac-toe.

Neuroshima Hex!
We didn't really have much time for a final game of the evening, but we pulled this out anyway. It was another 5-player free-for-all. I got a very unlucky when my base was poisoned by the Neojungle in the first turns. This meant that every time a battle started, I took a point of damage. There is no defense or cure against this. And based on the tile draws, there was nothing I could have done to prevent it. Figuring that I was doomed, I spent much of my game taking revenge on Robert. Ian and Brian did very well, using Merwin as a shield. But after I died, Robert stopped taking damage, Brian started getting hit, and Merwin was able to pull out New York's rocket launcher which did some righteous damage to Ian. As the three of them pounded on each other, Robert lasted to the end with the strongest base at 7 points (out of 20). The others were at 6, 5, and 4 hit points left. But I was still dead.

Saturday Gaming: A Bunch of Games

July 25, 2009

The n0rmal Friday night group got together on Saturday for a full day of gaming while Merwin had the house to himself. Also attending was Brian and Ian.

Neuroshima Hex!
After everyone finished eating their lunch, we started with a couple games of Neuroshima Hex! and tried out the Babel13 expansion. The expansion comes with two new armies: New York and Neojungle. It also includes terrain tiles and various scenarios, but we didn't use those.

We took the two new armies, randomly added two of the original armies, and dealt them out the players. We then formed two two-player teams. As it turned out in both games, New York and Neojungle were never teamed together and I was on the team with New York. It also turned out that my team won both games. This may have been because New York is overpowered and/or Neojungle too weak, especially in the two-on-two format. Neojungle player seemed to have a difficult time building strength and helping to defend his partner. With two teams, you generally want to focus your attacks on one opponent. In both games, the New York team ignored Neojungle and hammered his partner. In a cutthroat, three- or four-player game without teams, the Neojungle should do better.

Big City
The start of the game was delayed considerably as the rules were read. The reference cards were in German and so weren't as useful as they could have been (though they did add amusement as Brian and Ian tried to apply their incomplete knowledge of German with Merwin and I adding our terrible pronunciations). The game itself is straight-forward and easy to pick up once you play a few turns. The learning curve comes from memorizing the special placement and scoring rules for the various buildings you can build during your turn (which is where the reference cards would have been helpful).

The game board consists of 8 neighborhoods (only the first 5 of which are out at the beginning) consisting of 8 or 9 city blocks (in a 2x4 or 3x3 grid pattern). There are eight decks of cards, one for each neighborhood. Each numbered card in a deck corresponds to one of the numbered city blocks. To build a building (and get points for it), you must play the cards (typically 1 to 3) corresponding to where you are going to build it. Getting cards of adjacent blocks is necessary to place buildings covering 2 or 3 city blocks; naturally, these buildings score many more points than smaller structures. The decks for the even-numbered neighborhoods (which only have blocks) also contain special cards to build parks and factories. You don't get points for building these; they are used primary for blocking (since you can build them on any city blocks where they fit) though they also add (parks) or subtract (factories) points from buildings placed next to them.

On your turn, you can place any building, but since you must have the right cards, it limits the amount of time you spend thinking about it. It also adds a luck factor which can be very frustrating. One strategy is to only draw cards from a single neighborhood, which maximizes your odds of getting contiguous blocks and building options. You can only draw 2 cards from any neighborhood deck at a time, so it takes a while to build that monopoly. But then, someone can place a park or factory in your neighborhood and really mess with your plans. You can also place street cars (which double the value of buildings placed next to them, but earn no points on their own) to split city blocks and prevent the placement of 2- and 3-block buildings.

On your turn, you will either be placing buildings (and drawing cards to replace those you used) or doing something that earns no points but will block an opponent or enhance your future building scores and opportunities. The latter includes building city hall, placing street cars, park, or factory, or adding a neighborhood (especially useful if you've been drawing cards from a neighborhood deck before it has been placed), City hall doubles the value of buildings placed next to it, but since there are only 4 such blocks, this rarely comes up. However, until city hall is built, you can't build banks, post offices, theaters, churches, or shopping malls and are limited to residential and office blocks. Lastly, if you don't like your cards, you can spend your turn discarding some (which get recycled into the decks) and drawing new ones.

In the first game, Ian and I were way out front, but I managed to squeak past for the win. The second game was much closer; I think the spread from last to first was no more than 6 points.

One point of rules vagueness is whether or not you can see (or ask) the backs of other players' cards. Since the backs of the cards show the neighborhood number, you can see where they might be building. If you had a perfect memory, you could simply remember the decks everyone drew from and not have to ask. We decided that the memory element wasn't something we wanted, so we allowed asking. So, when I saw that Ian not only had the last undeveloped block in sector 5 and several 7 cards, and had just placed the 7 neighborhood, I placed Central Park (1x3) to really screw with his plans.

I also benefited from being able to build a church (with very restrictive building rules) when Brian discarded his "33" (neighborhood 3, block 3) card in favor of drawing more cards for neighborhood 8. I also picked up the factory he discarded and used it for further blocking. Again, I squeaked past for the win.

Tonga Bonga
This game reminded us of Manila because it is essentially a dice-based gambling game. Your best plans can be screwed up by inopportune dice rolls, either by yourself or your opponents. But it also has a strong racing element: you get more money (ducats, in this case) by being the first to visit islands. After visiting four islands, it is a race back to Tonga Bonga and those to make it get a bonus. But it is also a bidding game in which you are offering money to your opponents to put their highest-value dice on your ship. How fast you move is based on the value of dice on your ship. All in all, it is quite a light, clever game with interesting decisions.

After Big City, we broke for dinner. It was pointed out that I had won every game so far. Now, I'm not going to say they were purposely gunning for me (though they did mention the possibility), but I will point out I ended up dead last in Tonga Bonga. However, it was all my fault. As Ian, the winner, pointed out, the rest of us were offering too much money and he was doing just fine with offering minimal amounts. Even though I was the first and only player to make it back to Tonga Bonga, my overhead costs limited my profits. Ian's "low bidding" strategy wouldn't have worked if the die rolls had included more "pukers," which don't get placed on ships. [The six-sided dice are numbered 1-5, with 1 side showing a sailor hanging his head over the side of the ship.] It also wouldn't have worked if another player had also been low-balling. But such is the group-think of a bidding game.

Though enjoyable, it didn't beckon us to play more than once. And since it only handles 3 or 4 players, it's appearance at the game table may be limited.

Iliad
Brian won. We didn't even have to play the last round because his lead was that substantial. After we tossed in our cards, it was noted that Ian could have won if he won the round and Brian lost it. But it was too unlikely to happen; besides, Merwin and I had no desire to continue. The game just doesn't click with us and Merwin declared that it was going on this "to trade" pile.

In general, my cards sucked. I had a good starting hand, but wasn't able to win that round. For the rest of the game, I was stuck with elephants, siege engines, and other non-scoring cards. Only in the penultimate round did I get some hefty offense with 3 chariots. Merwin had similar problems and we both ended with scores close to zero compared to Brian's 10 and Ian's 6 (or so).

The Red Dragon Inn / The Red Dragon Inn 2
We dealt out 2 characters to each player and we chose 1 to play. Ian got his treasured Eve, the Illusionist. Brian was the Dwarf, Merwin the Wizard, and I the Half-Ogre. Things were looking grim for me at the beginning as I was losing gold fast. But despite Merwin's best efforts, I managed to win a hefty round of gambling and save my ass, so Merwin changed his focus to Ian. Later, Brian won a drinking contest. Unfortunately, the alcohol content sent him to oblivion but not before he won Ian's last gold piece. This left Merwin and I, but I managed to wear him down for the win.

It was a fun ending to a fun day.

Sunday Gaming: Settlers of Catan

July 19, 2009

Normally, every alternate Saturday, I play in a D&D (3.5) campaign that Andrew runs. Unfortunately, one of the group couldn't make it this week, so we bumped the game to Sunday. But we ended up not playing D&D due to miscommunication and instead pulled out a board game. Andrew had The Settlers of Catan, but had never played. Of the four of us there (Andrew, Rob, Tammy, and myself), only I had played before.

My two previous experiences were not positive. I did terribly; I chalked it up to not liking "trading games." In Catan, you have to trade resources with other players to be successful. The trading game that most non-gamers are familiar with is Monopoly, though few people play it that well. Hell, few people actually play by the published rules, which include auctions and don't include any special reward for Free Parking (except, you know, parking for free). And my last experience was back when D&D 3.0 came out, so I was quite rusty (but surprised myself by how much I actually remembered). I wasn't thrilled at the idea of facing Catan again, but I thought, like taking my fiber, it would be good for me.

As the first game, we decided to play with the beginner's setup, which starts with a specific map and pre-placed settlements. So much can ride on that initial placement of settlements--what resources you will get and what your expansion routes are--that this was clearly the best way to go with the first game. I know in previous attempts I had chosen poorly with my settlements and paid for it.

Catan, being the classic "Euro game" that it is, has been analyzed and described to death. But with 1 novice and 3 newbies, it was a fun, refreshing game. We (but especially Andrew) encountered the fickleness of the dice. We learned the value of development cards. Tammy ended up with the most knights and biggest army. I ended up with the longest road (thanks to the "build 2 road segments) card. Rob struggled but had fun.

I forced myself to trade and not hoard cards without giving away too much. Fortunately, I was able to build cities relatively quickly with my surplus of stone. I also designated myself "lord of the sheep" and was able to grab a 2:1 sheep port (cutting off Tammy from it) to good effect. When I built my fourth, along with my longest road, I was the first to 10 victory points and won the game.

For the second game, we played with a random setup and chose settlements. From the very beginning, Andrew and Rob were clashing for position. Unfortunately, Rob lost the race to build roads and was trapped. Rob had a settlement on the intersection of 3 stone hexes and a 2:1 stone port, but just couldn't make the most of them. In part, this was due to the robber spending half the game on one of the 3 stone hexes that he shared with Andrew and myself. In the first game, it was a race between Tammy and me. This game, Andrew was in the mix as well.

I (who went first and last in settlement placement) had a good starting position with lots of room. Tammy and Andrew were expanding into each other. I had wood (being on the intersection of 3 wood hexes) but no bricks. Andrew had clay, but no wood, which meant we traded 1-for-1 several times to help each other build roads. I was able to cut off Andrew to a 2:1 wheat port (flashback to game #1) and used it good effect when trading ("You'll have to offer me more than that for my wheat, because it's like a wild card for me"). I was also lucky because I had two settlements on the "11" wheat hex, which came up far more often than the 2-in-36 odds would predict. I grabbed more development cards this game and ended up with the most knights. And somehow Tammy let me get away with having the longest road. This time, I only built one city and it provided me my 10th victory point and the game.

This group, for whom I run my Monster Hunters Savage Worlds campaign, doesn't often play board games, but we've had a good time when we have. The last time was Dominion. For myself, I think I got over my Catan-aversion. Though experienced players can still clean my clock, I am open to playing it again.

Friday Night Gaming: Antike & Family Business

June 26, 2009
During the week, four of us made characters for an rpg, Bones, that Merwin was going to run. Only, Merwin didn't think he was running this week. :/

So, we played board games instead.

Antike
Coming off our game last week, it seemed like a good idea to play again while the rules were still fresh. We turned over the board and used the Mediterranean map this time. As Rome, I had Merwin's Germany to the north and Brian's Carthage to the south. Figuring that I had to move quickly ahead of Brian, I moved into the Iberian peninsula and took Sardinia. This boxed Brian in, who did manage to take Sicily-slash-Southern Italy. Meanwhile, as predicted, Merwin simply developed without expanding and we had a defacto demilitarized zone between us. Robert, as Greece, expanded to the north and east until he ran into Ian's Phoenicians.

Because of the rondel, Antike makes it very difficult to take swift military action. And even when forces are finally built up toward the end game, the brutal one-for-one combat system takes a heavy toll on any aggressor. So, like last time, there was little conflict until the end. By then, Ian in his safe corner was able to amass a slight lead and good momentum. Brian went after him, but it was too little, too late. In fact, as predicted, it meant I attacked him a little while later. We were able to put off Ian's victory by buying up the last temples, but Ian sacked one of Robert's temples for a much needed victory point, and then it was just a matter of waiting a few turns to buy up his missing technologies.

Two weeks in a row, there was significant end-game calculations and king making. Once someone gets within striking distance of winning, the end game becomes calculable. This time, we didn't even play out the last round because we couldn't stop Ian.* We've seen similar endings to Vinci and Mare Nostrum (though we've had a few surprise, sneaky wins there). I don't think it's fair to complain about this element of the game. You see it in racing games (most recently, Snow Tails) and abstract games ("mate in 5"). And it's our own damn fault for how we played in the early and mid-game anyway. But given the personal sacrifice that one or two players have to make (there was no way Merwin or I could stop Ian, except when we built temples) to try to stop a leader, it can lead to bad feelings, king making, and not an enjoyable end to the game.

Part of the problem is that since you can't lose vp in Antike, bashing the leader isn't an option the way it is in other games. You might slow them down. A bit. But it's probably not worth it. But not doing anything--not even trying to go after the leader--doesn't seem like a good option, either. I don't know if there is a good solution of even if a solution should be sought.

*: For the record, I could have won a turn later, and it would have taken Robert two turns.

Family Business
We desperately needed a filler, and Merwin pulled out this game from his achives. It was a favorite of his from college. But as a game design, I don't think it has stood the test of time.

My first issue was with the "pre-Magic" card design. Like Fluxx, this is a card game in which all the cards have special functions. There are attacks that send your mobsters to the "to be killed line" (an inspiration for Guillotine, perhaps?), defense cards, which don't work against some attacks, cards that remove your guys from the "to be killed line," and counters for those cards as well. Unfortunately, the cards only list the name of the card--not what they do. For that, you have to look them up in the rule book. Which meant that as newbies, we didn't know what the cards did and made several mistakes. Experienced players wouldn't have a problem (though even Merwin made a mistake or two) and the reference card at least makes a stab at explaining what can or can't be countered. I see that the 2008 edition seems to address this issue, thankfully.

But really, my biggest problem with the game is that it is an early-eighties design that hasn't aged well. The only tactic is "attack people you think can't counter it," and the only strategy is "draw good cards."

The shining moments of the game is when we ganged up on Ian, eliminating him first as payback for Antike. And later, Robert eliminated both himself and Merwin with one play. And perhaps that's really the point of this lightweight, back-stabbing game. Brian and I were left to fight it out, but we didn't remember a crucial rule (essentially sending the game into "sudden death") and so we don't know who should have won. But I lost.

Like Red Dragon Inn, it's all about attacking and eliminating other players. But it lacks the humor and mixed card play of that more recent game. Bang! has hidden roles and special powers. Hell, even Guillotine has set collection to liven up the strategy. I simply can't recommend it over those other games.

Friday Night Gaming: Antike

June 19, 2009

Antike
Most of us had played once before, a few years ago, not long after we first played Mare Nostrum. It was new to Brian, so he spent some time going of the rules on his own while we talked about other stuff.*

This is another civilization-building and expansion game with some interesting mechanisms. You gain victory points when you reach certain achievements, such as establishing 5 (or 10, 15, etc.) cities or building 3 (or 6, 9, etc.) temples, controlling 7 (or 14) sea spaces, or being the first to purchase one of the 8 technologies (4 basic and 4 advanced). The hardest points to earn are those from destroying opponent's temples. The first to a preset number of points (based on number of players) wins.

Each land space is marked with one of three resources: Iron, Marble, and Gold. Each turn, everyone also gets a Coin, which acts as one of any resource. Having a city in the region gives you one of that resource, three if you have built a temple (with Marble) there. You can build a city for one of each resource, but only if you have a unit already there (which requires Iron to build). So what tends to happen is that people expand territory, establish cities, build temples, and buy technology (with Gold) until they have to start attacking other players.

Combat is deterministic and brutal. Units (you have both ships and legions) destroy each other on a one-for-one basis. Cities require an additional unit, Temples two more beyond that. So if you wanted to sack a temple, you have to send in four units plus an additional unit for every defending unit occupying the region.

What we saw this time was an extreme build up of forces between Robert and Merwin, but neither attacked each other. Hell, I was completely vulnerable to Robert and he could have wiped me out, but by then, it would have left him vulnerable to Merwin and/or Brian. Eventually, Robert made his push and destroyed a few of Merwin's temple. Unfortunately, this ended up giving the game to Ian.

Merwin had a temple-focused strategy, eventually building 9 of the suckers. And with a limited number of temples available, it got so no one could build more. I was trying to take a balanced approach, but switched to taking technology before Ian could. Brian maintained his balanced strategy. Ian never attacked anyone, but was able to concentrate on technology. He was prevented from building more temples, but once one of Merwin's was destroyed and put back in the box, I was able to build his third temple for the win. Had Brian or I been more aggressive against Ian, things would have been different, but then the high cost of attacking makes this a very difficult trigger to pull.

We had an interruption in the game when Max decided that leaving the house and going to play in the neighboorhood without telling anyone was a good idea. A search party was gathered and things went on hold for a while until the wayward child was found.

*: At one point, there was a heated discussion of whether an imaginary number like 3+2i is "between" 1 and 10. I maintained that it isn't, but Brian argued it is. It was agreed that the next time someone asks us to "pick a number between 1 and 10," we'd have to ask what they meant by "between."

Friday Night Gaming: E.T.I., Snow Tails

June 12, 2009
We had the normal group of 5 this night.

E.T.I.: Estimated Time to Invasion
I was surprised at how smoothly this game went, considering that it is a rather odd game. I did my best to explain it, having studied the rules the weeks previous. The theme is of defense contractors preparing to defend the planet themselves against an alien invasion--an invasion that will be orchestrated by one of them who has been secretly infiltrated by the aliens. They conduct research (draw cards) to complete projects (get different cards) to improve their Defense and their Fame. But there are always fewer available projects than players, meaning that they are always fighting with each other. When the aliens invade (once a certain number of projects have been completed and the alien player reveals himself), the alien's launches attacks (plays cards) against each company. Among the companies who withstand the assault (have a Defense score higher than the attack total), the one with the highest Fame is the winner.

One might mistake this for a cooperative game, but it really isn't. There's constant backstabbing and self-interest reigns. The only thing that matters it that you survive the attack with the most Fame. You don't care who else dies. There are event cards which trigger some negotiations and voting of outcomes, but there is no inherent incentive for working together or finding compromises. This is good; I find most cooperative games too much like group projects at work.

Robert was hit by horrible luck the entire game. He kept getting scooped on projects and during the alien invasion, he was hammered by the worst possible cards. Meanwhile, Merwin was getting the best cards for completing projects and easily survived the alien invasion--the only one of us who did.* The randomness of the card draws soured the game for me. The others didn't seem to mind as much and wanted to play again (though not this night since it did take a couple of hours).

* For my part, I made poor selections of projects, leaving myself with too little defense and was easily overwhelmed by Brian, as the alien.

Snow Tails
I have been waiting for this game for a while and when the new Asmodee edition hit the states, I ordered a copy. It arrived this week, so I forced this on the group.

Brian and I had communication problems during my rules explanation. Part of the problem is that though Snow Tails is a racing game (in this case, with dogsleds), it is not a simulation. It uses cards for controlling speed and steering, doesn't involve any die rolling for maintaining control and avoiding crashes, and the physics of steering (what Snow Tails calls drifting) is actually backwards.**

As with many racing games, it it can be difficult to impossible to catch up when behind. There is no direct way to interfere with those in front of you and you just have to hope that they screw up and/or you get better luck. But this is true of real-life racing too. I can certainly understand why some people don't like the entire genre of racing games, but I enjoy them if they are quick, allow for interesting decisions, and are not simply dice-fests. This is certainly true of Snow Tails.

I was the first to cross the finish line, but Ian was not on my heels and was able to just pull ahead, finishing his turn one step ahead of me past the finish line and taking the win.

In the second game, we tried a different map from the rulebook, adding a section of saplings and a bottleneck. I had what seemed to be a good start, but I floundered in the u-turn and fell behind. Conversely, Brian really cruised through the turn and took a commanding lead. He finished first; I finished last.

The second game went very quickly and easily within the posted 45-minute time listed on the box. Only having 4 players (Robert left at his usual 11:30 time) helped, but the big difference was in how much more quickly we could execute our turns. In my case, I was able to use the time between turns to figure out what I wanted to do and once it became my turn, it was simply a matter of checking to see if I was in danger of hitting anyone.

As a card game, winning in Snow Tails requires some luck, but it is all about managing what you have the best you can. The quick game play and clever mechanics make for a game I'm proud to own and happy to play any time.

** Having a faster dog on the left causes you to drift to the left, but it actually should cause a turn to the right, as the slower dog adds drag and the left-side "circles" to the right. To this, I simply say Pfth! and don't worry about it.

Friday Night Gaming: Through the Ages, Mwahahaha!

May 29, 2009

Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization
Merwin, Robert, Brian, and I tackled Through the Ages again. We went for the Full Game, which didn't add much complexity over what we had played before. Brian was running late so we took the time to do a run-through with Robert.

We played for about four hours before we called it for time and had only gotten through two-thirds of the game. In the end, Robert had a commanding lead, thanks to his early development of theatre. Brian was dogging him, thanks to his superior military and good use of Homer (who adds culture based on military strength). Merwin and I floundered in the back. I was able to gain some ground by attacking Merwin, who left himself weak after successfully colonizing new territory. This is how the game is designed--expansion makes you weaker, and weak players will be picked on by stronger ones. As it turned out, Robert was hording cards he wasn't supposed to (a misinterpretation of the rules by the newbie), which limited the opportunity for colonization, much to Brian's consternation. Though we enjoyed it (and Robert did well despite it being a "victory point" game), we agreed that we just couldn't bring it out until we had an entire day to play. No one knows when that might be.

However, it got me thinking about how to create a simple, fast civilization game that really plays in an hour. Maybe two with six players (TtA only supports four). I have some thoughts, but they aren't coherent enough to share.

June 5, 2009
With Ian joining us, we had our core five players.

Mwahahaha!
Mwahahaha! is a game about villains building doomsday devices and threatening the world. They start small, by ransoming a city, and progress to a state and then an entire country. Finally, the first to successfully threaten the entire world wins. The devices take resources, of which there are four types, which players get by drawing cards, trading with others, and successful ransoms. They also have puppet corporations that allow them to better aquire resources. Finally, they also have minions and gotcha cards with which to attack (or defend against) other players.

Each device uses a different mix of resources. Some require more and thus take longer to build, but their odds of success are better. Players are dealt three and chose the one they want to build. During the game, you can also swap out your device.

The premise is good, the mechanics fit the theme quite well. For example, you get bonuses for a) blowing up your device when the city/state/etc. doesn't bow to your demands; b) sacrificing minions; c) stealing and then discarding resources from another player. Similarly, you are penalized if your ransom demands are not met.

During the game, I think we all inadvertently cheated at some point. I kept confusing "Energy" (red atomic symbol) with "Eureka" (yellow light bulb) resources, taking the latter when I was entitled the former. Brian had the same problem. Merwin cashed in more cards than he was allowed. Because the resource and trading phase is simultaneous, it is very difficult to keep track of what everyone is doing and these types of mistakes don't get caught.

Dice rolls are used to attack other players and make threats with the doomsday device. The dice are compared Risk-style (high-to-high, down the line) and you want to get a certain number of successes to win. To threaten the world and win the game, you need four successes, for example.

During our game, we saw some pretty wild results (some saved by bacon, to be honest) which will definitely not be to everyone's liking. The card draws for resources, minions, etc. also add randomness to the game. And this would be fine and fun if the game didn't take two hours to play.

Merwin put it on his trading list.

At one point in the game, I played a card against Robert that robbed him of his chance to attack other players and made him a target for the other players. This move was immediately declared a "typical Patrick strategy." I was taken aback and amused, as I didn't think I had a typical strategy except being conservative (in Poker, I would be described as "tight"). But no, according to them, setting other players up so that I don't use my own resources against them is something I do consistently. It certainly fits my definition of diplomacy--"Let's you and him fight"--I just didn't realize I actually applied it (and I suck at Diplomacy).

Friday Night Gaming: Power Grid, Palastgeflüster

March 22, 2009
There was a good chance that I wasn't going to make it this evening because of Kublacon. But the problem with playing in Friday night games at Kublacon is the 30-40 minute drive home at 2:00 a.m. and then having to get back to the con by 9:00 a.m. the next morning. So, a game has to be really enticing for me to commit. And since Ian had called for a return of Power Grid, it was an easy decision for me to join the regular gang. We were missing Zach (who was not at the con), whose new job/home in San Francisco has been limiting his participation and probably will continue to do so into the future. We had Merwin, Brian, Robert, Ian, and myself.

Power Grid
As with the first game, Step 3 seemed to come a little late. This time, it was Brian just waiting to pounce to trigger the end of the game. Seeing this and that he could power 13 cities to my 12, I picked up a power plant that increased my capacity to 13. Unfortunately, between this cost ($16), buying garbage for my 6-city plant, and expansion to 13 cities, I spent a little too much money. I finished behind Brian by $13, iirc. Merwin, who consistently had the fewest cities, managed to connect 7(?) new cities in one turn to bring him up to 13 cities as well. but this left him >$100 behind Brian and I.

We played on the U.S. map (minus New England), which as the usual "western problem." That is, the major cities are concentrated in the east and expanding into the west is expensive. You see this in games like Empire Builder, Ticket to Ride, and many others. It is not really a problem, so much as an element of geography that one has to account for. In our game, Merwin owned the west. Brian had the best position in the east and the lack of serious competition helped to bring about his victory. But that's the rub. If someone had been butting heads with him, neither Brian nor this other player would have done as well, leaving opportunity for a third player (such as I, who was concentrated in the midwest) to win.

Of course, Merwin "hates this game," but his analysis paralysis wasn't so bad. And though he'd martyr himself and play again if the rest of us wanted, I doubt I'll be able to play again for a long time.

Palastgeflüster
Once Power Grid was over, we had time for a filler, but I wasn't too keen on the usual Bang! or The Red Dragon Inn. So we pulled this out instead for a second time. After a good start, tied with Brian and Merwin in the lead, I proceeded to stink up the place and finished in last place. The horribleness of people's hands in the last few rounds was astonishing. But Merwin got the best of it, beating Brian in the tie breaker.

Friday Night Gaming: Die Säulen von Venedig, Notre Dame

May 8, 2009
We missed Robert this week.

Die Säulen von Venedig
Many games are maligned for having a kingmaking situation, when one player (who has no chance to win, himself) can make a decisive move that determines who wins the game. In general, this is a sucky situation for everyone involved. On the other hand (and you see this most often in two-player games), you want to create a situation wherein your opponent is forced into a play that gives you the win. Die Säulen von Venedig, about the building of Venice on top of wetlands, has both of these features.

Player actions are dictated by cards. Everyone has a hand of five cards; there is a clever scheme by which cards are added or removed from the deck based on the number of players. Everyone plays a card face-down and reveals them at the same time. Then, in clockwise order from the starting player (which almost always moves one seat the left each turn), players perform the action dictated by the card they played.

The three basic actions are:

• Pick city district tiles that you can build later.
• Place pillars onto which city tiles can be built. This also lets you tag some pillars as yours.
• Build city tiles that you had chosen earlier on pillars that you or others placed earlier.

When you build a city tile, you get victory points based on the size and placement of the tile. You also earn points when someone else builds on top of the pillars you tagged. Almost every time you earn points for yourself, someone else does too, which leads to a weird mid-game kingmaking situation. If you aren't in the lead, do you maximize your own score, even if that means giving the leader more points? Or do you help others while not helping your own position as much? Come to think of it, this happens in other games as well (Vinci comes to mind), but it just seemed more prominent here.

There are other ways to earn points, such as playing one of the 3 special action cards that give you points if someone plays another specific card. I am a terrible at second-guessing what my opponents will do, so I mostly avoided this tactic. Another option is to play the Gondolier card; as the gondolier (and you lose the position when someone else plays the card later), you earn points each time someone builds next to the Grand Canal.

And there are a few cards which copy another player's action, choose a card from another and use it, or lets you build without giving anyone else any points. The starting player of each round also has the option to draw a random card from another player and return it or replace it with one from their hand. This and the fact that played cards rotate one seat left helps prevent card-hoarding and insures an interesting mix of actions. If you have no build cards, you can be sure that eventually they will make their way around to you as other players play them. But what to do when you don't have what you want is part of the strategy. Overall, I was reminded of Notre Dame (and a little bit of Citadels), which is why I requested it later.

The game ends immediately when someone reaches 80 points (never happened to us) or when the last pillar is placed. There is no "finish the turn" rule as in most games, so it is important to grab points when you can. It also means the leader can help bring the game to an end by placing pillars, but the timing has to be right else someone else might build and gain the lead before the pillars are drawn (once you choose your action, there is no backing out).

The first game we played featured four players: Merwin, Ian, Brian, and myself. Ian showed the power of the gondolier when he built a bunch of small tiles along the canal. But since he was forced to pass it to me, I became the gondolier soon thereafter. I then had to pass it to Brian, but as the starting player, I lucked out and drew it from his hand. I then held onto the card for the rest of the game. This was the primary factor in my victory.

For the second game, this time with Zach joining us, everyone was keenly aware of the gondolier, and sank pillars far away from the Grand Canal, limiting the gondolier's importance. As with the first game, Ian and I seemed to do the best. He is a master of tagging pillars such that players are forced to build on them, and I tried to follow his example. In this game, I purposely delayed building until the latter half of the game and timed it relative to the starting player such that I wouldn't get locked out of building in the best spots. It seemed to work because I won that game too.

Notre Dame
This was Zach's first game and since he was sitting to Merwin's right, we told him repeatedly never to pass him the Bank or Notre Dame cards. In every previous game, Merwin won and each time it was with the same strategy: get coins from the Bank and give them to Notre Dame for prestige points. Plus, the extra money allowed him to buy the favors of the various character cards.

Despite the handicap, Merwin nearly won. This time, he focused on the location (I forget what it's called) that generates prestige points directly. In the final rounds, he was cranking out 5, 6, or 7 victory points at a time. But he suffered from not having influence cubes in the Hospital and was hit by the plague multiple times. At -2 points per hit, this was just enough to give the edge to Ian (sitting to Merwin's right) and his Carriage-based strategy.

For my own part, I finished dead last. In two of the three rounds, I was dealt both the Bank and Notre Dame at the same time, preventing me from adopting Merwin's winning strategy. I don't think I ever managed to get 3 cubes into a single location, except when I used my Trusted Friend (essentially, a wild card). Brian, to my right, had his own struggles and finished just ahead of me.

I still enjoy the game, but I can't tell if my horrible performance (except for the very first game) was due to bad luck or me just not getting it. I think I say this a lot, but it just seemed that I couldn't gain any momentum. In this case, I couldn't build the engine that would allow me to generate points in any meaningful amount.

Friday Night Gaming: Giants, Bang!

May 1, 2009
On Monday, Zach sent a message saying, "I will be there friday and there will be SF. BE READY TO RUMBLE!" On Friday, it was, "It doesn't change my attendance but... can we board game tonight? I'm not feeling so hot myself today." And since Max was also under the weather and Jill under multiple deadlines, Zach was told to stay home and keep his germs to himself. So no Street Fighter. Again.

Giants
I hate it when we break the seal on a game at the table. I hate listening to someone else read the rules from the book (even when I do it), which is completely different than having someone teach the game. I hate stumbling through the rules and arguing for 10 minutes because no one looked at the FAQ or discussions online. So, I wasn't happy when we started the game. I was further dismayed when in the first blind bid auction, I got exactly zilch.

Like Moai, this is a game about building statues on Easter Island. Unlike that cutthroat and claustrophobic game, Giants reminded me of Tikal. Both games have worker allocation, but no one starves in Giants. You can cut off and screw players in both games, but only in Moai can you cannibalize the opposition. And while both games involve getting victory points by building moai, only in Giants do you actually move them across the island and into position; plus, you can add the pukao for extra points.

Even though I got off to a very slow start (and was cut out of a couple of later auctions as well), I came in second. The reason was that Merwin went for a blitz win, something that I had contemplated at the beginning but didn't have the moai to accomplish. The end of game is triggered once someone erects five moai, which gives someone the opportunity to build cheap and fast and end the game before the others can transport their maoi to the highest-scoring spots. And that's exactly what happened to Brian and Ian. Like me, Robert was taking the middle ground, and the first/only one to start a pukao (and I was going to start the next turn, had the game not ended).

The various workers and tokens in Giants are kept hidden behind a screen. Also, when you build a moai, you place your marker face-down under it. So, you have to remember who built which moai. Ideally, all this information is very trackable and someone with a perfect memory can tell you what everyone has. In practice, though, you simply lose track. This allowed Merwin to build his fifth moai while the rest of us were thinking "Really? Already?" Merwin ended with 48 points, I had 23, and everyone else was below that.

I'm sure we'll play again and when we do, we'll be watching and guarding against the blitz win. But I can't say that I'm thrilled at the prospect.

Bang!
Merwin is the worst Deputy, ever. As Sheriff, I got far more assistance from Robert the Renegade than I did him. Never once did Merwin attack either Outlaw, even though we knew Ian was one of them. See, he was eliminated by Robert and I, but was later resurrected by a card from the Fistful of Cards supplement. By the time Robert killed Brian, the other Outlaw, Ian had regained his strength. I started attacking Merwin simply because I was tired of hitting Ian. Luckily, I didn't kill him--that was left to Robert. With the three of us left, we went a few turns until the High Noon deck hit the end. Ian then blasted me and I died when my turn came around and the High Noon card made me lose my last life point. Not bad for a dead guy.

Friday Night Gaming: Through the Ages

April 24, 2009
The entire evening was spent with one game. Since there were only four of us tonight, Merwin wanted to pull out a game that could only handle up to 4. At my request, he scanned the rules earlier in the week so that we could have them available for review. I created a two-page rules summary and made it available to the group. [I just made some fixes to it now: one important typo (changing a II to a III), one clarification, and one rule that I thought that I had missed, but actually only had forgotten to put the bullet in front of it, so it got lost.]

Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization
This card-and-cubes game has many similarities with the Civilization computer games. Players build up their populations, farms, mines, military units, etc., discover new technology, acquire leaders, and build wonders, all based on historical people and monuments. This last bit actually annoys me. For the first part of the game, I had Moses while Brian had Julius Caesar. These were not exactly contemporary characters (assuming Moses was even a real person). Later, I built the Taj Mahal. Do you see the disconnect? If we aren't following actual Earth history, I'd rather not have actual historical Earth figures and monuments. It's a minor point and consistent with Civ and similar games, so I'll drop it.

The rules are pretty heavy. They're pretty logical when you work out all the kinks (the rule book definitely doesn't help), but it takes a first game (or more) to figure out what you're doing wrong. For example, a player's turn consists of 4 phases: A, B, C, and D. Well, that's how I numbered them, since the rules don't. [Actually, they do have reference cards which breaks it down into 6 phases (1-6), but I didn't have access to it when I made my summary.] For the first several rounds, we were playing such that we do phase A, then everyone does phase B in turn order, then phase C, then D. As it turns out, this really slows down the game and really screws the last player (me, in this case). We were supposed to each do all phases, A-D, during our turn and then let the next player go. The game works better when you play it correctly. The reason for the error is that during the first turn, you do A, skip B, then everyone does C in order, and then D.

So this was definitely a practice game. We had a few stoppages while we tried to decipher the cards and understand the mechanics (which mostly involves pushing a lot of little cubes around). As it was, the game lasted ~4 hours and we stopped after only playing 2 of the 3 ages of civilization. The final score didn't really matter, but for the record, Ian was the winner, due in large part to his strong military (strong cavalry with Ghengis Khan) which gave him bonus points. Brian and Merwin followed, and I came in last. I was winning before we counted the end-of-game bonus points. I was earning the most points per turn, so I theoretically had a better longer-term position had the game continued. The biggest problem I was having was an inability to keep out of last place in military strength, which was linked to a lack of resources and science. But I did have the happiest population, so that counts for something... just not the score.

The big question is when we're ever going to be able to pull this out again because it will clearly take more time than we typically have Friday night and it doesn't accomodate 5+ players. But we are looking forward to it.

Friday Night Gaming: Clans, Moai, Volle Wolle

April 17, 2009
Zach was supposed to have run Street Fighter, but he never showed. This particular post is late due the relative ennui I've been feeling about the site. That and Google thinks this is a spam blog, for some bloody reason.

Clans
I brought this over hoping to play while we waited for everyone to arrive and I'm happy that we were able to do just that.

The first game featured Robert, Merwin, and myself while Jill semi-watched. It took Merwin a long time to wrap his head around it. And even though I was following him, it didn't seem to help me and I couldn't get any traction. Robert was the clear winner.

However, we had piqued Jill's interest and she joined in the second game. She had a bit of a struggle wrapping her head around the rules, but no worse than anyone else playing the first time. Meanwhile, it seemed to me that Merwin basically gave up trying to get the game. I ended up winning by a good margin.

Moai
Rather than wait until the end as we did last time, we all ganged up on Ian from the beginning. Meanwhile, I kept tangling with Brian which cost me momentum during the first few rounds when I couldn't get any wood. Because if this, I wrote myself off (and some of the others might have as well). However, I managed to gain considerable ground and had the lead going into the final round. I compare my situation to a middle-distance runner who starts his final kick just a bit too soon. Robert was able to destroy one of my moai, which set me back enough that I really had to work at the end. But I wasn't paying attention. I made the tactical error of pulling out the rules for our next game and was studying it instead of figuring out what I needed to do to win. I knew that Robert would win if someone didn't stop him, so I focused on denying him wood, which limited how many moai he could build (not only because he lacked wood, but was using his workers to fight for the wood rather than building a moai). But this also netted me nothing and all my workers starved in the final round. Meanwhile, Brian focused on simply keeping his workers alive and pulled away with the win. Had I been paying attention and not sacrificed my workers, focusing on getting points rather than stopping Robert from getting points, I might have had a shot at the win, but I'm not worried about it.

Volle Wolle
Ian left early because he had to fly to Japan the next day.

Merwin called the game "quaint," which is pretty accurate. It has elements of a dice game and a set-collecting card game. In this case, the dice are a d8, d10, and d12 with the goal of rolling as high as you can. The cards feature cute artwork of sheep and are of good, but not great quality. They are square with rounded corners, making them a little awkward to shuffle, but luckily it only has to be done once at the start of the game. Each player also has a bidding card and a cute little clothespin with which to secretly indicate the bid, by clamping the pin on the bid value which are positioned on the outside of the card.

A number of cards (one more than the number of players) are dealt face-up. The cards have a point value and over the course of the game, whoever collects cards with the most points wins. The cards depicting black sheep have negative values. There are also a few special 3-7-0 cards, which are worth 3 points if you only collect 1 such card, 7 points if you get a pair, but no points if you have 3 of them. Similarly, there are 0-0-7 cards. There are sheep dog cards, worth 9 points if you only have 1, but you get negative points if you either don't have one or have the most sheep dogs. There is also a bone card which gives you bonus points for each sheep dog you have.

As you collect cards, you place them in a single stack and are not allowed to review your pile, so you have to remember which cards you picked up. The top card of the pile may give you a positive or negative modifier to your die roll. In general, black sheep give a positive bonus whereas sheep worth more give you a negative modifier. Each card also has a number from 1 to 60 (or something like that). The value of the card on the top of your stack is used to break ties during the bidding process.

Once cards are revealed, each player makes a bid. The highest bidder goes first and rolls the 3 dice. If the roll (with any bonuses from the top card of your pile) equals or exceeds your bid, you get 3 of the face-up cards. If not, you can re-roll 2 of the dice. If you get your bid, you get 2 of the cards. If not, you can re-roll 1 of the dice you just rerolled. If this makes it, you get 1 card. If you fail to get your bid, you get a wool token (actually, a gray wooden disk). When rolling, you can spend a wool token to increase your die roll by 1; at the end of the game, each disk is worth 2 points (iirc). If you fail to roll 14 after 3 rolls, you are forced to take any and all black sheep that were dealt. When you win cards, you pick which ones and can choose the order in which they go into your stack.

Then, the next lowest bidder goes. The person with the lowest bid doesn't have to roll and simply gets all the cards that are left. It's also possible that that lowest bidders don't get any cards. You keep going in this way until all the cards have been captured and then you add up all the points of your cards, noting any black sheep or sets you were able to make.

I could never get any traction, and while Merwin and Robert were racking in cards, I floundered around. I even ended up with the most sheep dogs. Some of it was due to unlucky die rolls and some was due to being completely unable to predict what everyone else was going to bid. Brian seemed to be in much the same boat, but was still doing better than I was. In the end, we thought that Merwin was going to be the clear winner, but Robert managed to pull off a couple of good sets of 3-7-0 and 0-0-7 cards and came away with the most points.

As a filler, I guess it's an ok game, but I'd rather play Clans.

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.