Tuesday Night Strategy Games at Larry and Carlee's
I've stepped back from the gaming a little bit lately, with soccer taking up a lot of my free time and energy. I've joined a co-ed rec league in Chapel Hill, the Rainbow League. My team has over 30 registered players, who range from a fifteen year old girl to a couple guys who are pushing sixty. We tied our first game, 3-3, in near hundred degree heat and punishing humidity. It's been quite fun.
All the same, I've been looking forward to the impending Triangle area boardgame convention, TBGT, which will be held the weekend after next. I decided to attend Larry's game night, as they are nice people, and I'd like to participate in their events at least once a month.
Tuesday afternoon came and brought with it the anticipated UPS box containing my new copy of the Ragnar Brothers' Canal Mania. I unwrapped it, punched it, and read over the rules, in anticipation that I might get it on the table that night. With not too much time to spare, I hopped in the Jeep and sped off down the Durham Freeway.
I arrived in Cary to find a few people sitting around, just chatting. It turned out a few people were going to be late, some weren't coming, and nobody was in a hurry. To my chagrin, Chris, the person most likely to have a rabid desire to get Canal Mania on the table, was ill and unable to make it. The group waffled over games a bit, and the first game decided on was Alhambra, which Larry wanted to try. They had four players immediately, and, as I didn't like Alhambra that much with five players, decided I should encourage them just to play with four. Of those of us remaining, Sarah was interested in trying Thurn & Taxis, so we set it up. The game was only able to attract one other player, Christy, as the other attendees decided to just chill and chat.
I tried to be pretty careful explaining this, but it became evident over the first couple few turns that Sarah and Christy had some misconceptions. It took a while for them to figure out exactly how to play cards - for one thing, there was the belief that you were just laying cards down that connected to any of the cards one had previously laid. For another, there was the idea that you could "build from" places that you had already established a station. This makes me feel that I need to include a couple more comments in my teaching of the game specifically about card layouts and route building. These weren't huge hangups, though, and the game played pretty smoothly.
Christy was the first to get a coach, and we all proceeded to move through the upgrades with relative quickness. Sarah hit a definite connection snag, and had to discard a route. I hit a run of bad cards, and had to spend a long time on my last two routes. Christy had a very good run of cards, then stalled, and then spent a couple of turns claiming small routes to get the VP chips. This put me in a position to be first to get a seven route, and I took it, ending the game.
This play of Thurn & Taxis, although fairly close, was not the most competitive or interesting, but I certainly learned some stuff about the game. In particular, I got more comfortable with route building towards a goal, and realized I really need to pay more attention to the routes people are using and the cards that have been used up. It was a pretty fun game, as Sarah and Christy were nice to talk with.
With the teaching time, and some fairly slow turns, it took us a while to finish this game. I've been having to get up at five thirty to go to work, and consequently I wanted to head home a little early. One group was starting Shadows over Camelot, which was too long for me at that point. Another was continuing to chat on the couch. Yet another was leaving. I decided to join the exodus, as it didn't look like I was going to get too much gaming done if I stayed. In the end, I got home at a good hour, and was thankful for it.
So, I drove down to Cary to play a three player game of Thurn & Taxis. Not a terrible game night, but certainly a bit of a letdown in the shadow of the recent twenty seven attendee event in Iowa City... What a great group they seem to be building up there! Hopefully, I'll get to put Canal Mania on the table soon, and I can write up a real review. Until then, I guess I'll just keep dreaming...
GG, GL
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Game Night at David's 8/22/2006
Meetup.com has certainly been good to the gamers of the Triangle area, and it's been good to me since I became one of them. It really seems to a great blend of an online/real life community, and has allowed me to make the transition between states so much more comfortably. So, I guess this is my endorsement for using the resource to coordinate large gaming groups, and bring new people into the hobby.
This was the third event I'd become involved in through meetup. I met David at Rick & Marnee's game night, and we played four games together. I was looking forward to this evening not just because I knew I enjoyed David's company, but also because Chris, whom I've played games with a couple times, had offered to teach Age of Steam, a game I've really been wanting to try.
One thing I've learned since moving to Durham is that just because something has it's address here doesn't mean it's going to be close to my house. Durham is really spread out. I live way up on the North side, and David lives pretty far South. Thankfully, it's still getting dark pretty late, so I could read all the street signs. Another thing about Durham - not enough street lights, or streetsigns over the street. You need to know where you're going. Since this really isn't a travelogue, I'll tie this off by saying that I arrived at the house without incident, was treated to a prime parking space, and, had my anxiety over being late dispelled when I walked through the door to find only a handfull of other gamers present, and no games having started.
Chris went ahead and got Age of Steam set up while we waited for others to arrive. It seemed like there was a lot to do, with all the little goods cubes and tiles and such. A couple nice things about Chris's set for the game - he'd printed out colored score/goods boards, and laminated them, and had also produced turn-order reference cards, which helped a lot. One thing I might switch if/when I own this game might be to use poker chips instead of the coins which come in the box - they're a little small/fiddly.
Finally, everyone was there. The AoS table was myself, Dan, Keith, Jan, and Chris. The other table, who played, over the course of the night, Coloretto, Schrille Stille, and Ticket to Ride, was Christy, David, Larry, and Shanthi. They seemed to have a good time. I hope I get a chance to try Schrille Stille sometime - a game about manipulating the popularity of bands that has some cool components. They thought it was too long for the weight, but, it was a first play for most of them...
For those of you who aren't familiar with the game, Age of Steam looks like an abstract Euro tile laying/resource manipulation game with tons of fiddly bits. Of course, everyone who's seen the cover, thought about the name, or considered the track tiles would think it's probably a rail game. However, it was striking to me how little attention we actually paid to the theme during the game - I, for one, almost never thought about the idea of transporting goods by train during this session. For instance; we never called the goods by any name, just by their color. what train transports "red?" This is one case where I think it would be really nice to have something more representative than a wooden cube or cylinder.
Age of steam revolves around bidding for turn order, choosing a special action, and then building track/executing action to facilitate the movement of goods, which make money, to do more of the same. You start the game having borrowed money, in the form of stock shares sold, and having to make payments, and you have to sell more shares to get more working capital. The game plays a set number of turns, when you score based on the money you've made vs. the shares you've sold.
My game started poorly. I believe I was going second this turn, a position I ended up in a few times. I chose urbanization to get a city on the table, and built from the middle to the city I built, thinking I was going to get to transport some goods. Of course, I got to... just not what I'd expected. This was my first example of people getting in on one's plans and mucking up what you thought was going to happen, which is integral to the game. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough of a lesson for me to improve my play to deal with that circumstance. I did manage to make a couple bucks on that first turn, but slowed down a little after that.
I've read some on the 'geek about this game, and I had the impression that people really worried a lot about new players going bankrupt the first turn because they don't take enough money/overspend. I decided to go with the crowd and take an extra share (that is, I took two, putting me to four) which, it turned out, I didn't end up needing. I ended up doing this twice during the game. The one I took early hurt the most, of course, as I ended up paying for it the whole game. The later one was worthwhile, though, as my understanding of the game had grown at least to the point that I knew I'd need it if things went a certain way. I think the $10 that you start with plus one extra share should be adequate, if someone points out the math to you ahead of time. On the other hand, I guess it also gives you more bidding "clout" in the first round, as people know you have a lot of room to bid. If you are one of the later players in the opening bid round, it's probably a good idea to take it (the fourth share).
Dan got a real nice lock on the Southeast, with Chris in the NE, Jan in the mid-SW, and Keith right next to me. Dan moved West, Chris moved South, and Keith and Jan both moved into/through my area, making things really tight. The third turn featured a telling mistake on my part, failing to take first builder when I really needed to make a particular build, which I should have assumed Chris also wanted. Well, I messed up, he built the track, and I was in a sorry way. I moved West to try to open up my network. I ended up making some sub-optimal choices here, ending up with some network connections I never really got to use. Dan, on the other hand, made an ingenious build or two, and ended up in really good shape. Jan moved North and got into the cities in the NW first, folled by Keith. This would pay off huge for her later, when she would get a couple purple cubes to deliver for five each on the last turn.
We made some mistakes in the game, but learned a lot. I'll spare you any more of a game report, as I believe I've communicated most of the information that I gleaned from the game that seems worth sharing. Nobody went bankrupt, the game progressed steadily, with Dan pulling out to a big lead, and the rest of us staying pretty close. I was second in income most of the second half of the game, but had issued more shares than anyone except Chris. I had pretty decent turns on the last couple, but Jan's big turns, especially the last one, pulled her even with me on income and put her ahead, as she'd sold fewer shares. Keith seemed to not get out of his late bidding position, but worked a pretty good strategy around it, and wasn't far behind me. Chris somehow didn't do very well, even though he seemed to be doing fine to me. I really don't know where he went wrong, unless it was in not being able to ship enough in the mid game due to having to upgrade his locomotive all the time.
So, it ended like this: Dan in 1st by a lot, then Jan, Me, Keith, and Chris, with about six - nine points between each of us. We all had fun, I think, with some nice chatting during downtime, and after the game. When we finished, it was around 10:30, so it was about a three hour game, with teaching. It was a little late to start anything else, so we just sat around and talked about gaming. It was nice to meet a few more gamers that I can certainly expect to be playing a lot of games with over the next few years.
GG, GL
JW
Meetup.com has certainly been good to the gamers of the Triangle area, and it's been good to me since I became one of them. It really seems to a great blend of an online/real life community, and has allowed me to make the transition between states so much more comfortably. So, I guess this is my endorsement for using the resource to coordinate large gaming groups, and bring new people into the hobby.
This was the third event I'd become involved in through meetup. I met David at Rick & Marnee's game night, and we played four games together. I was looking forward to this evening not just because I knew I enjoyed David's company, but also because Chris, whom I've played games with a couple times, had offered to teach Age of Steam, a game I've really been wanting to try.
One thing I've learned since moving to Durham is that just because something has it's address here doesn't mean it's going to be close to my house. Durham is really spread out. I live way up on the North side, and David lives pretty far South. Thankfully, it's still getting dark pretty late, so I could read all the street signs. Another thing about Durham - not enough street lights, or streetsigns over the street. You need to know where you're going. Since this really isn't a travelogue, I'll tie this off by saying that I arrived at the house without incident, was treated to a prime parking space, and, had my anxiety over being late dispelled when I walked through the door to find only a handfull of other gamers present, and no games having started.
Chris went ahead and got Age of Steam set up while we waited for others to arrive. It seemed like there was a lot to do, with all the little goods cubes and tiles and such. A couple nice things about Chris's set for the game - he'd printed out colored score/goods boards, and laminated them, and had also produced turn-order reference cards, which helped a lot. One thing I might switch if/when I own this game might be to use poker chips instead of the coins which come in the box - they're a little small/fiddly.
Finally, everyone was there. The AoS table was myself, Dan, Keith, Jan, and Chris. The other table, who played, over the course of the night, Coloretto, Schrille Stille, and Ticket to Ride, was Christy, David, Larry, and Shanthi. They seemed to have a good time. I hope I get a chance to try Schrille Stille sometime - a game about manipulating the popularity of bands that has some cool components. They thought it was too long for the weight, but, it was a first play for most of them...
For those of you who aren't familiar with the game, Age of Steam looks like an abstract Euro tile laying/resource manipulation game with tons of fiddly bits. Of course, everyone who's seen the cover, thought about the name, or considered the track tiles would think it's probably a rail game. However, it was striking to me how little attention we actually paid to the theme during the game - I, for one, almost never thought about the idea of transporting goods by train during this session. For instance; we never called the goods by any name, just by their color. what train transports "red?" This is one case where I think it would be really nice to have something more representative than a wooden cube or cylinder.
Age of steam revolves around bidding for turn order, choosing a special action, and then building track/executing action to facilitate the movement of goods, which make money, to do more of the same. You start the game having borrowed money, in the form of stock shares sold, and having to make payments, and you have to sell more shares to get more working capital. The game plays a set number of turns, when you score based on the money you've made vs. the shares you've sold.
My game started poorly. I believe I was going second this turn, a position I ended up in a few times. I chose urbanization to get a city on the table, and built from the middle to the city I built, thinking I was going to get to transport some goods. Of course, I got to... just not what I'd expected. This was my first example of people getting in on one's plans and mucking up what you thought was going to happen, which is integral to the game. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough of a lesson for me to improve my play to deal with that circumstance. I did manage to make a couple bucks on that first turn, but slowed down a little after that.
I've read some on the 'geek about this game, and I had the impression that people really worried a lot about new players going bankrupt the first turn because they don't take enough money/overspend. I decided to go with the crowd and take an extra share (that is, I took two, putting me to four) which, it turned out, I didn't end up needing. I ended up doing this twice during the game. The one I took early hurt the most, of course, as I ended up paying for it the whole game. The later one was worthwhile, though, as my understanding of the game had grown at least to the point that I knew I'd need it if things went a certain way. I think the $10 that you start with plus one extra share should be adequate, if someone points out the math to you ahead of time. On the other hand, I guess it also gives you more bidding "clout" in the first round, as people know you have a lot of room to bid. If you are one of the later players in the opening bid round, it's probably a good idea to take it (the fourth share).
Dan got a real nice lock on the Southeast, with Chris in the NE, Jan in the mid-SW, and Keith right next to me. Dan moved West, Chris moved South, and Keith and Jan both moved into/through my area, making things really tight. The third turn featured a telling mistake on my part, failing to take first builder when I really needed to make a particular build, which I should have assumed Chris also wanted. Well, I messed up, he built the track, and I was in a sorry way. I moved West to try to open up my network. I ended up making some sub-optimal choices here, ending up with some network connections I never really got to use. Dan, on the other hand, made an ingenious build or two, and ended up in really good shape. Jan moved North and got into the cities in the NW first, folled by Keith. This would pay off huge for her later, when she would get a couple purple cubes to deliver for five each on the last turn.
We made some mistakes in the game, but learned a lot. I'll spare you any more of a game report, as I believe I've communicated most of the information that I gleaned from the game that seems worth sharing. Nobody went bankrupt, the game progressed steadily, with Dan pulling out to a big lead, and the rest of us staying pretty close. I was second in income most of the second half of the game, but had issued more shares than anyone except Chris. I had pretty decent turns on the last couple, but Jan's big turns, especially the last one, pulled her even with me on income and put her ahead, as she'd sold fewer shares. Keith seemed to not get out of his late bidding position, but worked a pretty good strategy around it, and wasn't far behind me. Chris somehow didn't do very well, even though he seemed to be doing fine to me. I really don't know where he went wrong, unless it was in not being able to ship enough in the mid game due to having to upgrade his locomotive all the time.
So, it ended like this: Dan in 1st by a lot, then Jan, Me, Keith, and Chris, with about six - nine points between each of us. We all had fun, I think, with some nice chatting during downtime, and after the game. When we finished, it was around 10:30, so it was about a three hour game, with teaching. It was a little late to start anything else, so we just sat around and talked about gaming. It was nice to meet a few more gamers that I can certainly expect to be playing a lot of games with over the next few years.
GG, GL
JW
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Game Night at Rick & Marnee's, Durham, NC
Things fell into place for me to be able to make my 2nd Meetup Group game event. This one took on added importance, as it was the first in my new home town, Durham. This event isn't strictly a Meetup event - it has been, apparently, going on for several years. It's a general gaming night at the fine home of a very pleasant couple.
I got there shortly after the posted start time of 7 pm. There were probably 7 or 8 people there, counting the hosts. The population quickly swelled, however, and it was time for gaming to begin.
While we were standing around chatting, waiting for people to arrive, Jeff whipped out Lightspeed and explained it to David and I. It's a quick little cardgame with dexterity/speed/miniatures game elements that plays in maybe ten minutes. It's a little frenetic, and is certainly for people who have a little more energy for their gaming than me... You each have a deck of ships, with guns shooting in specific directions, and sometimes shields on certain sides. You flip down ships until someone is through their deck, at which time you stop, and, through order of initiative, shoot eachother along the lines of the guns as shown on your ships. Ships accrue damage, and, when destroyed, count as points. You can also get points by shooting minerals off of asteroids. Well, Jeff was through his deck quickly, and I only got about half of my ships down. Jeff shot a bunch of stuff, I shot a couple things, David shot some of his own ships (negative points), and we ended the game in that order, with scores of, I believe, 14//7/0. Not really my type of game, but an interesting implementation of some fun ideas.
Rick, Chris, Dave, and one other player settled in to play Britannia, with the designer of the game, Lew, looking on. I opted out of this game as I didn't want to commit to a big game that late at night, or to spend my whole first event there looking at the same four other people. The game interests me, though, and hopefully there will be other chances to play it. They were the first to get set up, and were still playing when I left, around 1 AM.
It was still just the three of us, and we decided on Samurai, the game I had brought that fit best for three players. Jeff wanted to try it as he is a bit of a Knizia fan, apparently. Halfway through the rules explanation more players arrived, and we added Eric to our game. Eric and David had played more than me, and Jeff was new.
Initial piece placement was interesting as there was a definite trend for people to try and create small groups of double-influence spots. I targetted the center of the board for personal setup, and then tried to event things up around the islands.
Jeff was the first player. He started with his 3 samurai in the central city. David built influence on the towns to the North and South. Eric went primarily to the Northern Island. My opening draw was dissatisfying, with a couple big tiles, three small tiles, and no bonus tiles. In the early game, I felt like I really couldn't make anything happend, and just tried to get my fours in the center. Jeff disrupted me well, though, and closed off the city with one trophy for each of us, and one in a draw. When I finally started to draw bonus tiles, I drew a couple small naval pieces, which weren't doing me a lot of good. In a hurry to get to something more interesting (the ronin tile) I played the navies too early. In fact, I played all my bonus tiles, save the trophy switch and the ronin too early. The one that especially hurt was the two navy, which I should not have played when I did.
The game progressed as a pretty tight affair. This was my first game with four, and I wasn't doing a good job of keeping track of which trophies people were taking. I also always felt like I was one player away from making the moves I would plan out... Like many games, more players is more chaos, making it harder to plan your turn. I made one decent double play which gave me two trophies, and gave one to Jeff which tied him on Buddhas with Eric, the tiles I got being the high-hat and rice, the two that I was fighting for. The game ended with Buddha exhaustion (nice phrase, hunh?), leaving a high hat and rice on the table, which I figured was good for me. I had only managed four of each, though, tying me for the lead in both. It turned out Eric, with his five Buddhas was the only one with a clear majority in anything, and was the deserved winner of the game.
The other table was playing Guillotine, and I discovered that another group had arrived and had been playing TransAmerica in the basement. Eric, David, and myself joined two of them, Brian and Sarah, for Niagara, which was a new one to me. Jeff stayed upstairs to teach Ingenious, and a Pente game got started. Another group pulled out Samurai.
Unfortunately, nobody in our group really knew how to play Niagara, and so Sarah was reading through the rules, and then re-explaining them to us, a bit at a time. This took a while, but I didn't feel in a hurry. We got it figured out, and got started. I was in the last seat with green boats (like you care).
The funky river/falls mechanic of Niagara is quite charming. Really a neat idea. I started off with a cloud right away, as I wanted to see the water move a lot! Our group was pretty conservative, though, staying away from the edge. In fact, nobody went over the falls the whole game!
For those who aren't familiar with the game, I'll note that it was last year's SDJ winner. It is a fairly family oriented strategy game, with neat looking components, and a realy cool mechanism in which the board drapes over the game box, forming a channel for a set of clear plastic discs which represent the water in the river, on which you are fiecely paddling your little kayak in search (somehow) of gems. You have a set of movement tiles with numbers from 0(cloud) to 6, which you chose and play each turn to move your boats, to get gems from the river bank, and bring back to the dock. You can also steal gems from other boats if you land on their space while going upstream.
I decided to just, you know, get my feet wet, and then see how the water felt, before developing a hard strategy. There are 3 ways to win: 4 of a kind of one color gem, one each of five different colored gems (out of six), or seven total. I figured, I'd see which ones looked good to get in a reasonable time, and go for that.
So, I jumped out with a cloud and got the river moving. Then, I started getting my boats in the water, and was able to accrue four purple gems and a diamond. I was one purple away from winning, but that color is closest to the dock, and the last two got picked up on this turn. They got picked up by Eric, who looked like he could win by getting them in, but Brian made a clever steal to deny him. I wasn't in good turn order, or position, and couldn't get in on a steal. David, meanwhile, was also only one gem from winning, but he had four different gems, meaning that he only needed one of two different colors for the victory. It took another couple turns, but he got a diamond in for the victory. I think we all had fun with this one, and I'd like to play it again with an experienced group, when I think it would fly. It really didn't deserve as much time as we put into it.
Other games were all still in progress with the remaining attendees, so the five of us dragged out the copy of Santiago that Thoughthammer was kind enough to ship to me last week. David had his eye on it as one to buy, and wanted to try it out. I was happy to get it on the table so soon. Brian and Sarah had each played once before.
I went through the teaching, and we got started. I really like Santiago. It's a well designed game, fairly quick, which is really it's own game. It has connection/set collection/bidding elements, and synthesizes them well. The thing I like most about this game, I think, is that, while being a very interesting exercise, it is also very conducive to social interaction, especially through the bribery phase. There's also a bit of a "take that" element, which is not too heavy handed, however.
I've explained Santiago before, I think, but, for the sake of thoroughness, I'll say this: It's a game in which the players are plantation owners, bidding on tiles that represent fields to add to the plantations, and then bribing the canal overseer to make sure that the fields get watered, so they don't dry up and become worthless. There's rarely free water, and often there's not enough water for everything to get some, so drying is just going to happen, and the game is fairly confrontational. One more note - this is an Amigo game, distributed in the U.S. by Z-man Games. I have to admit that, aside from it being a good game, one of the things that originally motivated me to buy it was that I just wanted to buy something without a Rio Grande logo on it for a change!
I started off really well with two two-yield bean fields in a square of four, with David having one-yield tokens on the other two. This square was right in the middle, and hence had a lot of frontage to expand. However, the bean tiles stopped showing up, which stand to reason, and other plantations got bigger. Most of us got in on a big potato plantation on top of the beans. Bananas and Peppers got started to the right. Sugar cane got going to the left. First potatoes, then sugar, got really big (seven or eight tiles out of nine!) While this was happening, peppers managed to also get up to seven just at the end of the game. I only managed to get the beans up to six, I think. It could have been eight, but I was unable to get the connections watered for two turns in a row, right at the end.
This particular play was noteworthy in that Brian did a very good job of trying to vary the board and not let things just go one way. Also, in general, everyone seemed happy to grow most of the plantations, and weren't really looking at blocking things off, or taking tiles to put them out of position to deny someone the chance to grow. We ended up with four really big plantations, which I don't think has really happened for me before. There was only one tile, I think, that dried up to desert before the end of the game, when there were a bunch. We all used our bonus canals pretty early. Unfortunately, I used mine too early, even though I was the last to play one. I guess I just used it at a bad time - if I'd held on to it, as I should have, I would have been able to water more beans, and probably would have scored 15-25 more points. Instead, I played it for a measly 4 points of peppers (that turned out to be seven in the end, so, I guess, a net loss of 8-18).
In the end, Brian prevailed with 86, David had 81, I had 77, Sarah had, I think, 70, and Eric was in the high fifties, after having had some bad luck with tiles getting cut off. I think everyone enjoyed it fairly well, although, like our Niagara game, there was a lot of extended thinking and analysis in this game, with much more time being taken during turns than I'm used to. I think that might have been an artifact of the particular group, though.
When we got done, I was amazed to find out that it was close to 12:30. I got ready to leave, but ended up talking with David, and somewhat with Rick, for about half an hour. It was really nice to get a chance to chat with them, and was a pleasant end to a fun evening. I'll get another chance to game with David at the event he's hosting next Tuesday.
GG, GL,
JW
Things fell into place for me to be able to make my 2nd Meetup Group game event. This one took on added importance, as it was the first in my new home town, Durham. This event isn't strictly a Meetup event - it has been, apparently, going on for several years. It's a general gaming night at the fine home of a very pleasant couple.
I got there shortly after the posted start time of 7 pm. There were probably 7 or 8 people there, counting the hosts. The population quickly swelled, however, and it was time for gaming to begin.
While we were standing around chatting, waiting for people to arrive, Jeff whipped out Lightspeed and explained it to David and I. It's a quick little cardgame with dexterity/speed/miniatures game elements that plays in maybe ten minutes. It's a little frenetic, and is certainly for people who have a little more energy for their gaming than me... You each have a deck of ships, with guns shooting in specific directions, and sometimes shields on certain sides. You flip down ships until someone is through their deck, at which time you stop, and, through order of initiative, shoot eachother along the lines of the guns as shown on your ships. Ships accrue damage, and, when destroyed, count as points. You can also get points by shooting minerals off of asteroids. Well, Jeff was through his deck quickly, and I only got about half of my ships down. Jeff shot a bunch of stuff, I shot a couple things, David shot some of his own ships (negative points), and we ended the game in that order, with scores of, I believe, 14//7/0. Not really my type of game, but an interesting implementation of some fun ideas.
Rick, Chris, Dave, and one other player settled in to play Britannia, with the designer of the game, Lew, looking on. I opted out of this game as I didn't want to commit to a big game that late at night, or to spend my whole first event there looking at the same four other people. The game interests me, though, and hopefully there will be other chances to play it. They were the first to get set up, and were still playing when I left, around 1 AM.
It was still just the three of us, and we decided on Samurai, the game I had brought that fit best for three players. Jeff wanted to try it as he is a bit of a Knizia fan, apparently. Halfway through the rules explanation more players arrived, and we added Eric to our game. Eric and David had played more than me, and Jeff was new.
Initial piece placement was interesting as there was a definite trend for people to try and create small groups of double-influence spots. I targetted the center of the board for personal setup, and then tried to event things up around the islands.
Jeff was the first player. He started with his 3 samurai in the central city. David built influence on the towns to the North and South. Eric went primarily to the Northern Island. My opening draw was dissatisfying, with a couple big tiles, three small tiles, and no bonus tiles. In the early game, I felt like I really couldn't make anything happend, and just tried to get my fours in the center. Jeff disrupted me well, though, and closed off the city with one trophy for each of us, and one in a draw. When I finally started to draw bonus tiles, I drew a couple small naval pieces, which weren't doing me a lot of good. In a hurry to get to something more interesting (the ronin tile) I played the navies too early. In fact, I played all my bonus tiles, save the trophy switch and the ronin too early. The one that especially hurt was the two navy, which I should not have played when I did.
The game progressed as a pretty tight affair. This was my first game with four, and I wasn't doing a good job of keeping track of which trophies people were taking. I also always felt like I was one player away from making the moves I would plan out... Like many games, more players is more chaos, making it harder to plan your turn. I made one decent double play which gave me two trophies, and gave one to Jeff which tied him on Buddhas with Eric, the tiles I got being the high-hat and rice, the two that I was fighting for. The game ended with Buddha exhaustion (nice phrase, hunh?), leaving a high hat and rice on the table, which I figured was good for me. I had only managed four of each, though, tying me for the lead in both. It turned out Eric, with his five Buddhas was the only one with a clear majority in anything, and was the deserved winner of the game.
The other table was playing Guillotine, and I discovered that another group had arrived and had been playing TransAmerica in the basement. Eric, David, and myself joined two of them, Brian and Sarah, for Niagara, which was a new one to me. Jeff stayed upstairs to teach Ingenious, and a Pente game got started. Another group pulled out Samurai.
Unfortunately, nobody in our group really knew how to play Niagara, and so Sarah was reading through the rules, and then re-explaining them to us, a bit at a time. This took a while, but I didn't feel in a hurry. We got it figured out, and got started. I was in the last seat with green boats (like you care).
The funky river/falls mechanic of Niagara is quite charming. Really a neat idea. I started off with a cloud right away, as I wanted to see the water move a lot! Our group was pretty conservative, though, staying away from the edge. In fact, nobody went over the falls the whole game!
For those who aren't familiar with the game, I'll note that it was last year's SDJ winner. It is a fairly family oriented strategy game, with neat looking components, and a realy cool mechanism in which the board drapes over the game box, forming a channel for a set of clear plastic discs which represent the water in the river, on which you are fiecely paddling your little kayak in search (somehow) of gems. You have a set of movement tiles with numbers from 0(cloud) to 6, which you chose and play each turn to move your boats, to get gems from the river bank, and bring back to the dock. You can also steal gems from other boats if you land on their space while going upstream.
I decided to just, you know, get my feet wet, and then see how the water felt, before developing a hard strategy. There are 3 ways to win: 4 of a kind of one color gem, one each of five different colored gems (out of six), or seven total. I figured, I'd see which ones looked good to get in a reasonable time, and go for that.
So, I jumped out with a cloud and got the river moving. Then, I started getting my boats in the water, and was able to accrue four purple gems and a diamond. I was one purple away from winning, but that color is closest to the dock, and the last two got picked up on this turn. They got picked up by Eric, who looked like he could win by getting them in, but Brian made a clever steal to deny him. I wasn't in good turn order, or position, and couldn't get in on a steal. David, meanwhile, was also only one gem from winning, but he had four different gems, meaning that he only needed one of two different colors for the victory. It took another couple turns, but he got a diamond in for the victory. I think we all had fun with this one, and I'd like to play it again with an experienced group, when I think it would fly. It really didn't deserve as much time as we put into it.
Other games were all still in progress with the remaining attendees, so the five of us dragged out the copy of Santiago that Thoughthammer was kind enough to ship to me last week. David had his eye on it as one to buy, and wanted to try it out. I was happy to get it on the table so soon. Brian and Sarah had each played once before.
I went through the teaching, and we got started. I really like Santiago. It's a well designed game, fairly quick, which is really it's own game. It has connection/set collection/bidding elements, and synthesizes them well. The thing I like most about this game, I think, is that, while being a very interesting exercise, it is also very conducive to social interaction, especially through the bribery phase. There's also a bit of a "take that" element, which is not too heavy handed, however.
I've explained Santiago before, I think, but, for the sake of thoroughness, I'll say this: It's a game in which the players are plantation owners, bidding on tiles that represent fields to add to the plantations, and then bribing the canal overseer to make sure that the fields get watered, so they don't dry up and become worthless. There's rarely free water, and often there's not enough water for everything to get some, so drying is just going to happen, and the game is fairly confrontational. One more note - this is an Amigo game, distributed in the U.S. by Z-man Games. I have to admit that, aside from it being a good game, one of the things that originally motivated me to buy it was that I just wanted to buy something without a Rio Grande logo on it for a change!
I started off really well with two two-yield bean fields in a square of four, with David having one-yield tokens on the other two. This square was right in the middle, and hence had a lot of frontage to expand. However, the bean tiles stopped showing up, which stand to reason, and other plantations got bigger. Most of us got in on a big potato plantation on top of the beans. Bananas and Peppers got started to the right. Sugar cane got going to the left. First potatoes, then sugar, got really big (seven or eight tiles out of nine!) While this was happening, peppers managed to also get up to seven just at the end of the game. I only managed to get the beans up to six, I think. It could have been eight, but I was unable to get the connections watered for two turns in a row, right at the end.
This particular play was noteworthy in that Brian did a very good job of trying to vary the board and not let things just go one way. Also, in general, everyone seemed happy to grow most of the plantations, and weren't really looking at blocking things off, or taking tiles to put them out of position to deny someone the chance to grow. We ended up with four really big plantations, which I don't think has really happened for me before. There was only one tile, I think, that dried up to desert before the end of the game, when there were a bunch. We all used our bonus canals pretty early. Unfortunately, I used mine too early, even though I was the last to play one. I guess I just used it at a bad time - if I'd held on to it, as I should have, I would have been able to water more beans, and probably would have scored 15-25 more points. Instead, I played it for a measly 4 points of peppers (that turned out to be seven in the end, so, I guess, a net loss of 8-18).
In the end, Brian prevailed with 86, David had 81, I had 77, Sarah had, I think, 70, and Eric was in the high fifties, after having had some bad luck with tiles getting cut off. I think everyone enjoyed it fairly well, although, like our Niagara game, there was a lot of extended thinking and analysis in this game, with much more time being taken during turns than I'm used to. I think that might have been an artifact of the particular group, though.
When we got done, I was amazed to find out that it was close to 12:30. I got ready to leave, but ended up talking with David, and somewhat with Rick, for about half an hour. It was really nice to get a chance to chat with them, and was a pleasant end to a fun evening. I'll get another chance to game with David at the event he's hosting next Tuesday.
GG, GL,
JW
Monday, August 14, 2006
Community Game Night, Sci Fi Genre, Durham, NC
Apparently, this store opened up just a couple weeks before I moved to town. They have a nice, big web page, but it's kind of a half-done store. They have some comics, some miniatures games, some roleplaying games, some boardgames, some toys, but not really a GOOD selection of anything. They have a decent little game area, though, and they seem to have made a good start of things. I stopped by to take a look around a few days ago, and found out that Mondays are, basically, boardgame night.
I decided to stop on by, and threw some games in the car. When I got there, there were a couple people playing Dreamblade, and a couple people looking on. I'm interested in any Jonathan Tweet game, simply because I playtested a couple games for him back in the day when he still lived in Rock Island (Everway and the OTE ccg). I'm pretty down on collectible games, but WOTC supports theirs well, and, I'm sure that if this one is good, it will take off. One thing I noted watching the game was that the players kept having to look at the bottoms of their figs, and that the bases were all different colors. It seems to me it would have been nice to have more info on the bases, and also to have some built in way to differentiate the teams.
The Dreamblade game ended, and Chris from the Meetup group showed up. It turned out the only people interested in boardgaming at that time were myself, Chris, and the other bystander, George. We each had a couple games along. After a brief discussion, it became clear that the most intense interest was Chris's desire to check out Thurn & Taxis, so we got that on the table.
I've only played once, as I believe had George. We got through the rules and setup, and were into the game fairly quickly. I was the first player, followed by Chris and George.
When I had played this game before, it was a two player game, with Kurt, and we both took our time, building up big routes to get big bonuses. In this game, Chris and George both scored their first threes, while I went ahead to five, to get a bonus tile for route length as well as another bonus for the purple area. I followed that up with bonus for the green areas, and was feeling pretty good. However, George managed to pull off the grey area bonus, and Chris got the every area but Bayern bonus, and the two of them were pushing through the stages, forcing me to keep up.
After the five route, I hit a bit of a stumbling block as the right cards just weren't coming up. I finally made up an alternate plan for my route, and finished it up, also scoring the second bonus for every area outside Bayern. Georg made a big play during this time, though, utilizing the special power to build two cheaper to be the first person to get to the six stage. This really put pressure on Chris and I. I waited too long, and finished my six two turns down the road. Meanwhile, George was drawing hot, and managed to claim the seven coach as the last player in the round, stranding Chris and I with cards in hand and houses left to play.
In the end, it came down to George with 19, me with 17, and Chris with 16. A pretty close game. I really enjoyed it, and I could certainly pick out places where peoples' decisions had huge effects on the game (I should have tried harder to keep up with the stages - definitely a lesson learned). So, the game works all right, to me, for three - now I just have to try it with four. I expect that that will be the sweet spot, with lots changing every turn.
It was still early, and we were all up for another game. Nobody else had shown up to play, though, so it was another three player. I had RK's Samurai, which I really like with three, but it seemed that George was more interested in getting Power Grid on the table, so we settled on that.
I don't know if I've ever played PG with three, but it seems it should scale well, with the limited areas. I wondered what effect not being limited on access would have, though - nobody could get totally shut out of a city, of course, as there are three spaces on each. Anyway, the USA map was unfolded and I was first player. I chose the area with Texas, George moved East into the upper Midwest (Ohio, etc.), and Chris surprised us by taking the Pacific Northwest. It would be the first time I'd played without the cheap-o East Coast.
I started off with the four plant, while Chris and George both grabbed doubles. Turn two I took the six, while Chris took another small one, and George got another two, the ten, which I really should have bid on... however, I'd had a brain fart and thought I could bid on any of the eight plants... This threw the game off a little, and discouraged me a bit - it left me with no good plant options, and pretty much forced me to take the six.
I had built right in the middle, with Chris going right to the North and George cutting me off to the South. After the third turn, though, George was cut off in the South, with big money required to break out past five cities. Chris and I got to six, with me being able to power a little more. I figured we were set for a pretty good stage two stall. However, Chris was playing pretty unpredictably, and he went ahead and broke the stall, moving way past the cities he could power and making himself first player.
At this point, we were up for a bit of a scramble. We stayed pretty tight on building, with Chris falling a little behind on income, as he seemed content to sacrifice plant upgrades and resource acquisition for building. I upgraded plants several times, which generally wasn't bad, as there was very little counter-bidding in this game. People generally seemed happy to let others have the plants they wanted. I think this was another effect of the three player game - not enough bidding competition. George got the first five, I got a four, then a five, then a six, and then another six. George got a second five, and a six. Chris was lagging behind, and then managed to pick up the only seven that showed it's face, followed by a six, putting him right back in it at the end.
In the penultimate turn, I was about three dollars away from being able to finish the game, by my calculations. I let George win his second six plant, uncontested (I could already power 17, and there was another six on the board I could probably get the next turn, uncontested). I built up to fifteen, three cities ahead of the other two. The next round, I was able to buy the other six plant, and build three cities, to put me at eighteen powered, as opposed to George's 17 built and powered, and Chris's 18 built, 17 powered. With tie breakers, George came in second.
The last turn was really tight. I think I would not have been able to win cleanly that turn (that is, I would have had to go to tiebreakers) if different decisions had been made in resource acquisition. There were turns when people bought up coal or oil, and then didn't spend them, keeping them from being able to buy them the next turn. The timing of this was, mostly, good for me. Also, There was a turn when Chris declined to buy resources that made it so I could pay less for them, which saved me a couple dollars (I had one in my hand at game end). I consistenly bought ahead when able, though, so I didn't really have to worry about it that much. One other thing that helped was that I was the only one who ever had a garbage plant - the one producer, upgraded to a three wind, in turn upgraded to the six garbage.
A good, fun game that taught me what I expect is a valuable lesson: watch out for Chris! He made at least three decisions that George and I both asked him to reconsider, as they seemed bad, but he still was within a whisker of winning. This was certianly the play of this game in which I've had the least trouble managaing my power plants/resources - I think three is a good number for casual play, but I prefer the competition offered by four or five players.
On the way out, I picked up a Dreamblade starter pack to check out. I can't afford to spend too much more money on games right now, but I don't want the people at SFG to think I'm the sort of person who's just going to use their space and never buy anything. I'm a big advocate of paying the rent, so to speak, where you play.
Next up, gaming at David's on Friday.
GG, GL
JW
Apparently, this store opened up just a couple weeks before I moved to town. They have a nice, big web page, but it's kind of a half-done store. They have some comics, some miniatures games, some roleplaying games, some boardgames, some toys, but not really a GOOD selection of anything. They have a decent little game area, though, and they seem to have made a good start of things. I stopped by to take a look around a few days ago, and found out that Mondays are, basically, boardgame night.
I decided to stop on by, and threw some games in the car. When I got there, there were a couple people playing Dreamblade, and a couple people looking on. I'm interested in any Jonathan Tweet game, simply because I playtested a couple games for him back in the day when he still lived in Rock Island (Everway and the OTE ccg). I'm pretty down on collectible games, but WOTC supports theirs well, and, I'm sure that if this one is good, it will take off. One thing I noted watching the game was that the players kept having to look at the bottoms of their figs, and that the bases were all different colors. It seems to me it would have been nice to have more info on the bases, and also to have some built in way to differentiate the teams.
The Dreamblade game ended, and Chris from the Meetup group showed up. It turned out the only people interested in boardgaming at that time were myself, Chris, and the other bystander, George. We each had a couple games along. After a brief discussion, it became clear that the most intense interest was Chris's desire to check out Thurn & Taxis, so we got that on the table.
I've only played once, as I believe had George. We got through the rules and setup, and were into the game fairly quickly. I was the first player, followed by Chris and George.
When I had played this game before, it was a two player game, with Kurt, and we both took our time, building up big routes to get big bonuses. In this game, Chris and George both scored their first threes, while I went ahead to five, to get a bonus tile for route length as well as another bonus for the purple area. I followed that up with bonus for the green areas, and was feeling pretty good. However, George managed to pull off the grey area bonus, and Chris got the every area but Bayern bonus, and the two of them were pushing through the stages, forcing me to keep up.
After the five route, I hit a bit of a stumbling block as the right cards just weren't coming up. I finally made up an alternate plan for my route, and finished it up, also scoring the second bonus for every area outside Bayern. Georg made a big play during this time, though, utilizing the special power to build two cheaper to be the first person to get to the six stage. This really put pressure on Chris and I. I waited too long, and finished my six two turns down the road. Meanwhile, George was drawing hot, and managed to claim the seven coach as the last player in the round, stranding Chris and I with cards in hand and houses left to play.
In the end, it came down to George with 19, me with 17, and Chris with 16. A pretty close game. I really enjoyed it, and I could certainly pick out places where peoples' decisions had huge effects on the game (I should have tried harder to keep up with the stages - definitely a lesson learned). So, the game works all right, to me, for three - now I just have to try it with four. I expect that that will be the sweet spot, with lots changing every turn.
It was still early, and we were all up for another game. Nobody else had shown up to play, though, so it was another three player. I had RK's Samurai, which I really like with three, but it seemed that George was more interested in getting Power Grid on the table, so we settled on that.
I don't know if I've ever played PG with three, but it seems it should scale well, with the limited areas. I wondered what effect not being limited on access would have, though - nobody could get totally shut out of a city, of course, as there are three spaces on each. Anyway, the USA map was unfolded and I was first player. I chose the area with Texas, George moved East into the upper Midwest (Ohio, etc.), and Chris surprised us by taking the Pacific Northwest. It would be the first time I'd played without the cheap-o East Coast.
I started off with the four plant, while Chris and George both grabbed doubles. Turn two I took the six, while Chris took another small one, and George got another two, the ten, which I really should have bid on... however, I'd had a brain fart and thought I could bid on any of the eight plants... This threw the game off a little, and discouraged me a bit - it left me with no good plant options, and pretty much forced me to take the six.
I had built right in the middle, with Chris going right to the North and George cutting me off to the South. After the third turn, though, George was cut off in the South, with big money required to break out past five cities. Chris and I got to six, with me being able to power a little more. I figured we were set for a pretty good stage two stall. However, Chris was playing pretty unpredictably, and he went ahead and broke the stall, moving way past the cities he could power and making himself first player.
At this point, we were up for a bit of a scramble. We stayed pretty tight on building, with Chris falling a little behind on income, as he seemed content to sacrifice plant upgrades and resource acquisition for building. I upgraded plants several times, which generally wasn't bad, as there was very little counter-bidding in this game. People generally seemed happy to let others have the plants they wanted. I think this was another effect of the three player game - not enough bidding competition. George got the first five, I got a four, then a five, then a six, and then another six. George got a second five, and a six. Chris was lagging behind, and then managed to pick up the only seven that showed it's face, followed by a six, putting him right back in it at the end.
In the penultimate turn, I was about three dollars away from being able to finish the game, by my calculations. I let George win his second six plant, uncontested (I could already power 17, and there was another six on the board I could probably get the next turn, uncontested). I built up to fifteen, three cities ahead of the other two. The next round, I was able to buy the other six plant, and build three cities, to put me at eighteen powered, as opposed to George's 17 built and powered, and Chris's 18 built, 17 powered. With tie breakers, George came in second.
The last turn was really tight. I think I would not have been able to win cleanly that turn (that is, I would have had to go to tiebreakers) if different decisions had been made in resource acquisition. There were turns when people bought up coal or oil, and then didn't spend them, keeping them from being able to buy them the next turn. The timing of this was, mostly, good for me. Also, There was a turn when Chris declined to buy resources that made it so I could pay less for them, which saved me a couple dollars (I had one in my hand at game end). I consistenly bought ahead when able, though, so I didn't really have to worry about it that much. One other thing that helped was that I was the only one who ever had a garbage plant - the one producer, upgraded to a three wind, in turn upgraded to the six garbage.
A good, fun game that taught me what I expect is a valuable lesson: watch out for Chris! He made at least three decisions that George and I both asked him to reconsider, as they seemed bad, but he still was within a whisker of winning. This was certianly the play of this game in which I've had the least trouble managaing my power plants/resources - I think three is a good number for casual play, but I prefer the competition offered by four or five players.
On the way out, I picked up a Dreamblade starter pack to check out. I can't afford to spend too much more money on games right now, but I don't want the people at SFG to think I'm the sort of person who's just going to use their space and never buy anything. I'm a big advocate of paying the rent, so to speak, where you play.
Next up, gaming at David's on Friday.
GG, GL
JW
Fjords
Fjords was the first two-player game I bought with the express hope that Kristin would enjoy playing it. After all, she is from Norway... It was received fairly well, and has been followed with Lost Cities, Odin's Ravens, and Balloon Cup (the latter two yet to be played). Kristin's been terribly busy of late, but Sunday she decided it was time to relax and spend some time with hubby, and suggested a game of Fjords.
Fjords is pleasant. The tiles look pleasant, you don't have to think too hard, it plays quickly. That said, it's one of those games that sort of plays you - one often doesn't have a lot of options about where to place tiles. I would say that in this game, we only had to make meaningful decisions about what to do with tiles about 1/3 of the time. It's also quite common, maybe 1 in 5, that a tile can't be played on the current board configuration, which can lead to some frustration as players peruse the board looking for options. This goes down a little with familiarity with the game, as you develop the ability to keep track of certain things - water and rock edges, big grass spaces - developing on the board.
Kristin isn't really into tile-laying/spatial recognition. Maybe it's the theme that keeps here interested. The basic play of the three rounds consisted of each of us trying to play our farms in areas that could become bottlenecks to grow from, and then trying to augment little areas for ourselves. I ended up winning all three rounds, and I think it was due to a couple of things.
First, I think Kristin at times recognized possible bottlenecks, and played farms, without looking at how hard it might be to expand from an area. If you put a farm down in a bottleneck, but can't subsequently expand the private area due to odd combinations of rock edges/water/etc. around it, it often becomes something that can be cut off from play very quickly during the farm expansion phase. Related to this is the crucial timing of farm placement - particularly being the person who places the last farm. I placed the last farm every time, and it gives you the option, much of the time, to get in on an area your opponent has spent time developing.
Second, you have to stay conscious of the plan to create areas for yourself. When the field expansion time comes, you have to make the moves that keep your farms open, and work to close off your opponent's. Simply driving into an open area is a near-waste of a move. This part of the game is really quite tense, and what makes the game an interesting strategic exercise. Starting to plan for it when it's time to lay your first field is too late. A related idea is working to not be the one to draw the last tile - playing the first field is a huge advantage.
Well, not much to report. Just a few words on Fjords. I'm hoping we'll begin a weekly habit of playing a game with each other. It's a nice way to spend some focused time together. Maybe next week, we can continue the Nordic theme with Odin's Ravens.
Tonight I'm planning on heading down to Sci-Fi Genre, a part gaming, part comic, part general geek store in the Southern part of Durham. It's Community Boardgame Night, according to their schedule, and I'm curious to check it out. I'll probably take Thurn and Taxis, Samurai, and something for Five players, maybe El Grande or Hacienda.
GG, GL
JW
Fjords was the first two-player game I bought with the express hope that Kristin would enjoy playing it. After all, she is from Norway... It was received fairly well, and has been followed with Lost Cities, Odin's Ravens, and Balloon Cup (the latter two yet to be played). Kristin's been terribly busy of late, but Sunday she decided it was time to relax and spend some time with hubby, and suggested a game of Fjords.
Fjords is pleasant. The tiles look pleasant, you don't have to think too hard, it plays quickly. That said, it's one of those games that sort of plays you - one often doesn't have a lot of options about where to place tiles. I would say that in this game, we only had to make meaningful decisions about what to do with tiles about 1/3 of the time. It's also quite common, maybe 1 in 5, that a tile can't be played on the current board configuration, which can lead to some frustration as players peruse the board looking for options. This goes down a little with familiarity with the game, as you develop the ability to keep track of certain things - water and rock edges, big grass spaces - developing on the board.
Kristin isn't really into tile-laying/spatial recognition. Maybe it's the theme that keeps here interested. The basic play of the three rounds consisted of each of us trying to play our farms in areas that could become bottlenecks to grow from, and then trying to augment little areas for ourselves. I ended up winning all three rounds, and I think it was due to a couple of things.
First, I think Kristin at times recognized possible bottlenecks, and played farms, without looking at how hard it might be to expand from an area. If you put a farm down in a bottleneck, but can't subsequently expand the private area due to odd combinations of rock edges/water/etc. around it, it often becomes something that can be cut off from play very quickly during the farm expansion phase. Related to this is the crucial timing of farm placement - particularly being the person who places the last farm. I placed the last farm every time, and it gives you the option, much of the time, to get in on an area your opponent has spent time developing.
Second, you have to stay conscious of the plan to create areas for yourself. When the field expansion time comes, you have to make the moves that keep your farms open, and work to close off your opponent's. Simply driving into an open area is a near-waste of a move. This part of the game is really quite tense, and what makes the game an interesting strategic exercise. Starting to plan for it when it's time to lay your first field is too late. A related idea is working to not be the one to draw the last tile - playing the first field is a huge advantage.
Well, not much to report. Just a few words on Fjords. I'm hoping we'll begin a weekly habit of playing a game with each other. It's a nice way to spend some focused time together. Maybe next week, we can continue the Nordic theme with Odin's Ravens.
Tonight I'm planning on heading down to Sci-Fi Genre, a part gaming, part comic, part general geek store in the Southern part of Durham. It's Community Boardgame Night, according to their schedule, and I'm curious to check it out. I'll probably take Thurn and Taxis, Samurai, and something for Five players, maybe El Grande or Hacienda.
GG, GL
JW
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Sadness, etc.
So, it's GenCon time. Sigh. When I was 15 years old, in 1986, my friend Mike Caparula asked me to go along with him to the Con. His brother, Joe, had written some articles for Dragon, and a GURPS book for Steve Jackson (Riverworld), and was in the process of writing a Shire sourcebook for ICE's MERP game. He had invited Mike (and me, as his guest) to stay with him in Madison, and ride into the Con in Milwaukee with him and his wife. That was a magic weekend. I was blown away by everything about the event. Amazing dealer room, awesome miniatures gaming scenarios... It was a great time. And I haven't missed a year since.
Until now. With the wedding and the move this summer, and living a fat 16+ hour drive away now, GenCon just came to be too big of a financial burden at the wrong time. It might have been different if more of my old friends were going, but as it stands, Jef Smith can't make it due to a broken arm, Sean Wolfe isn't going because of one of his kids being sick, and I don't think Fred Hooper was going. Maybe he just wasn't going to get a booth. He's probably not going. I got pretty sad reading a GenCon report on Boardgamenews, that had some pictures. I'd so love to be there. I thought about the $500 or so it would cost me to go (estimated total) for Saturday and Sunday, and just couldn't justify it. This sets up a side discussion - what makes something "important?" When is it worth it to spend money for experience? I might spend the money to go to a wedding, but I feel so guilty spending it on, basically, games... but, how much of my happiness comes from games, and isn't happiness what it's all about? Maybe next year, I'll make sure everyone's going, get my ticket in advance, etc.. So, I'm going to console myself by making the game order I was thinking about.
It looks like I'm going with Thoughthammer, and the list is still being finalized, but looks like it will include Commands & Colors Ancients and Santiago for sure, with Struggle of Empires, Reef Encounter, and Tempus vying for the final slots to make up the balance for free shipping. Age of Steam is out of stock, otherwise that would be in the "for sure" column.
While shopping around, I noted that some games I really am interested in are not available from Thoughthammer. Canal Mania, Streetsoccer, and Lost Valley are all to be had from Bouldergames, though, so I've only to wait for the first two to come back into stock before making that order...
One other note, while shopping around, of course, I went to check Boardgamegeek. Still down. I don't necessarily base my purchases on their ratings, but it's nice to be able to read some more personal comments and see some more pictures before shelling out for something you haven't played. I check BGG every day, and it's especially informative at times like these. I'm wondering, if you, dear reader, will share, how much BGG going down effects your day?
Well, I'm off to do some more organizing of my stuff. I hope that everyone is staying cool inside, and has some nice plans to get some gaming in this weekend. Of course, if you're at GenCon, I hope you will have a great time, and don't forget to go to the retro diner and duck pin bowling alley in Fountain Square!
GG, GL
JW
So, it's GenCon time. Sigh. When I was 15 years old, in 1986, my friend Mike Caparula asked me to go along with him to the Con. His brother, Joe, had written some articles for Dragon, and a GURPS book for Steve Jackson (Riverworld), and was in the process of writing a Shire sourcebook for ICE's MERP game. He had invited Mike (and me, as his guest) to stay with him in Madison, and ride into the Con in Milwaukee with him and his wife. That was a magic weekend. I was blown away by everything about the event. Amazing dealer room, awesome miniatures gaming scenarios... It was a great time. And I haven't missed a year since.
Until now. With the wedding and the move this summer, and living a fat 16+ hour drive away now, GenCon just came to be too big of a financial burden at the wrong time. It might have been different if more of my old friends were going, but as it stands, Jef Smith can't make it due to a broken arm, Sean Wolfe isn't going because of one of his kids being sick, and I don't think Fred Hooper was going. Maybe he just wasn't going to get a booth. He's probably not going. I got pretty sad reading a GenCon report on Boardgamenews, that had some pictures. I'd so love to be there. I thought about the $500 or so it would cost me to go (estimated total) for Saturday and Sunday, and just couldn't justify it. This sets up a side discussion - what makes something "important?" When is it worth it to spend money for experience? I might spend the money to go to a wedding, but I feel so guilty spending it on, basically, games... but, how much of my happiness comes from games, and isn't happiness what it's all about? Maybe next year, I'll make sure everyone's going, get my ticket in advance, etc.. So, I'm going to console myself by making the game order I was thinking about.
It looks like I'm going with Thoughthammer, and the list is still being finalized, but looks like it will include Commands & Colors Ancients and Santiago for sure, with Struggle of Empires, Reef Encounter, and Tempus vying for the final slots to make up the balance for free shipping. Age of Steam is out of stock, otherwise that would be in the "for sure" column.
While shopping around, I noted that some games I really am interested in are not available from Thoughthammer. Canal Mania, Streetsoccer, and Lost Valley are all to be had from Bouldergames, though, so I've only to wait for the first two to come back into stock before making that order...
One other note, while shopping around, of course, I went to check Boardgamegeek. Still down. I don't necessarily base my purchases on their ratings, but it's nice to be able to read some more personal comments and see some more pictures before shelling out for something you haven't played. I check BGG every day, and it's especially informative at times like these. I'm wondering, if you, dear reader, will share, how much BGG going down effects your day?
Well, I'm off to do some more organizing of my stuff. I hope that everyone is staying cool inside, and has some nice plans to get some gaming in this weekend. Of course, if you're at GenCon, I hope you will have a great time, and don't forget to go to the retro diner and duck pin bowling alley in Fountain Square!
GG, GL
JW
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Triangle Games Meetup New Member Night, Saturday, August 5th, Cary, NC
One of the second things I did after finding out that Kristin had gotten a job in NC was to google for my various interests (the first thing was to check out the teaching jobs situation). I had a lot more luck with my hobbies than with employment, and I quickly joined the TG Meetup Group. Since then, I've watched their message boards, and learned a little about the group.
To my good fortune, Larry, the group organizer, had decided to host a "New Member" night the Saturday after our arrival in Durham. We've spent the last few days cleaning, unpacking, settling in, and taking care of various move-related necessities. It was with relief, and perhaps a hint of nervousness, that I left the house on Saturday, bound for my first social encounters in NC.
My first stop was All Fun & Games, a retail store in Cary, about half an hour from our new home. AF&G is a nice store, clean and well lit. The have a mix of products, including a pretty good Eurogame selection. Other than that, they sell some M:tG singles (pretty cheaply, actually), and have a small seletion of Games Workshop Miniatures and some RPG books. They also have a pretty large, clean gaming area, and a fairly sizeable library of games that can be checked out. Regularly scheduled gaming events make this a very likely destination, for me, in the future.
After visiting the store, I ran across the street to the Harris Teeter (grocery store) to pick up some snacks. From there, I made a few wrong turns but eventually made it to my first destination, a bbq gathering for Triangle Soccer Fanatics, another web-based group I'd joined months ago. After a nice time watching Ajax vs. ManU, and a little bit of Chelsea/MLS All-Stars, I was back on the road.
I wrote down the directions wrong, but still managed to find the house. Cary is a meandering miasma of circular streets, full of nice houses. Affluent and popular, it is, apparently, a very nice place to live. I grabbed my box of games (I'd selected Thurn & Taxis, Nexus Ops, and Ingenious), and headed for the door.
Larry and Carlee have a nice house, and did a good job of making space. When I arrived, unfortunately a little late, there were two five-player games about to start. I sat back to wait and see if anyone would show up. As fortune was with me, I was not a spectator long. I hardly had a chance to meet the Railroad Tycoon and Shadows Over Camelot players before three more players arrived.
Johna and Carole are new to Eurogames, and we chose Ticket to Ride as a handy and reliable introduction. We were joined quickly by Rob, described by one of the other attendees as a "TTR Shark."
I went through the rules, and dealt the cards. I ended up keeping all my tickets. I had a big seventeen with San Francisco-Atlanta, and then a couple smaller tickets involving, I think, Oklahoma City, Dallas, New York, and Sault-St. Marie.
I went into card-hoarding mode, and, to my chagrin, I wasn't getting the cards to go along with my plan. There was a lot of drawing off the top in this game. My unease was furthered when it became evident that all the players were commiting to routes in the same area that I was hoping to go through. I took what I thought would be a couple key connections, and deliberated on an alternate plan, deciding to use the tickets I had to work North from Frisco, and then around and down the East Coast.
I wasn't taking this game too seriously, as I was mainly there to meet people. Shortly after starting my new path,though, I decided to do a quick count of my remaining train cars. It turned out I was a car short of being able to complete my tickets on the current plan! Oops. Time for a new idea. I reorganized my cards and started to work from Oklahoma City through the remaining route to the East, where I could complete all my tickets by forking.
During this time, John was leaping to an early lead, clearly having figured out how to play. He efficiently collected groups of cards and claimed routes at a steady pace. Rob was taking new tickets like wild, and ended up with, I think, seven, the most I have seen someone take. I was thinking he was going to get busted, but he looked pretty pleased with himself, so I figured he must have drawn into something. He didn't get anywhere near the West coast, though, so I figured he hadn't drawn anything gigantic.
The turn after I started East, Rob, sitting immediately to my left, took the other fork of the path I needed. This meant that I could only complete all my tickets if I somehow conjured up 5 black train cards out of nowhere. Sitting on Seven blues (all that drawing off the top, remember?), I decided just to trigger the end game and take the blue six that was lying just off the tail of my aborted first alternate plan. I figured the 15 points and the chance to bust some people on tickets was worth the negative nine.
I managed to play all my cars, and all in a contiguous chain, so I had uncontested longest route (everyone else had several cars left). I jumped up to a final score of 100, which I consider pretty low. Carole came up close behind, at, I think, 97. Rob completed all but one of his tickets but, as I suspected, they weren't very big, and he finished in the high eighties/low nineties. John, it turned out, hadn't made a simple connection, and didn't complete his 20 point ticket, which, it turned out, he was taking for granted that he had done. That forty-point swing took him quite a way back, when he would have tied for second with 97 had he been tied in.
I really enjoyed this game. It was a nice, friendly yet competitive group, and the game was tense and tight with a lot of interaction. In the midgame, I really didn't expect to win, as blocked as I was, but I think biting the bullet and pushing for the game end helped me a great deal.
I went to watch the ends of the other games, and Rob, John, and Carole played Set. There was no traitor in Shadows, and the Knights were victorious. I joined the Shadows players for Tsuro while Railroad Tycoon ended.
I've not played Tsuro before. A decent looking little game, I especially liked the tiles. In this game, you play tiles with paths on them that your piece must follow as far as possible. If you hit an open tile edge, you stop. If you run into the edge of the board or another player, you're eliminated. The player to my left failed to move into the center, deciding to come up the side toward me, and I cut him off and eliminated him on the third turn. Two turns later, I eliminated the player to his left, and another player was eliminated, I think, by Larry, the host. The next turn, Larry didn't have a piece that would let him survive, so he played one that would run him into me, taking us both out of the game.
I thought Tsuro was all right, an extremely quick game that would work as airy filler. It really felt like you didn't have too many choices though, and were, in effect, just following the path laid before you. Probably decent for non-gamers, it's a game I think I would quickly tire of.
Railroad Tycoon finished, and we congregated in the main room to re-divide. Chris expressed interest in Thurn & Taxis, but, as we had ten left, and five wanted to play Puerto Rico (with new players at 11 pm), we had to get in the market for a five player. I realized I'd only brought four players with me (if only I'd ordered Santiago...), and we ended up with Ra.
I've never played this, but am aware of how highly it's regarded. I own more games by Knizia than any other designer (I'm sure this is true of many of us), and have been curious to check it out. Sadly, I am commonly terrible at auction games, apparently lacking the skill set necessary to analyze bid timing on the first play.
Well, unhappily I must report that this game proved no different. I passed on the best auction I had a chance at winning with my 15 (about half full, with, I think, no civilization - which I needed), and ended up not getting to use it that round as we drew several Ra's. A terrible round. I went into the next epoch with the 15 and 16, and was sure of great things. I acted early, trading in my 3 for a couple tiles and the 14. After that, I couldn't seem to get much going. I managed one decent auction win and then, again, the Ra's started flying. With the final round, I really didn't have a chance, but hoped to at least pick up some points. At that point, Chris was in the lead, with the young man I eliminated first from Tsuro in second. Chris managed to solidify his position very nicely, and points were picked up all around. Larry somehow went out somewhat early, although he certainly finished ahead of me. It came down to heads up between myself and, I think, Becca (not sure on the name?). Interestingly, I think I was heads up in each round, and it never really paid off for me. We each had one sun tile left, me having the higher, and I decided to spring for an auction that was full but for one piece, which would gain me a few points, but nothing huge. Becca hit the big free auction that I had been hoping for previously, and filled up nicely with monuments that gave her bonus points, two gold, and an extra pharaoh that put me tied with her for last. In the end, that big auction had just the stuff she needed to put her on top, when she had been second to last going into that round.
Ra is certainly a fun game, and it's very interesting the way you have to manage your bids. I felt like I had very little control in this game, though, with the tiles drawn in relation to your seat position being a big factor. I'd like to play it a couple more times to see what I get out of it.
After that game, it was past time for me to leave. I discussed the local gaming scene with Chris and Larry for a while, and got back on the unfamiliar roads of Cary, headed back to my new house. Reflecting on the day during the drive home, I couldn't help but be happy about how things had worked out. Honestly, I've been a little disappointed in the move, as Durham is nice but, at first blush, not that exciting (it's much larger that Iowa City, but, somehow, it seems like there's less of interest here - at least for me). I certainly miss my friends, and I'm very happy to have made these initial contacts.
Looks like I'll have gaming as regularly as I'm willing to drive to Cary or host events.
GG, GL
JW
One of the second things I did after finding out that Kristin had gotten a job in NC was to google for my various interests (the first thing was to check out the teaching jobs situation). I had a lot more luck with my hobbies than with employment, and I quickly joined the TG Meetup Group. Since then, I've watched their message boards, and learned a little about the group.
To my good fortune, Larry, the group organizer, had decided to host a "New Member" night the Saturday after our arrival in Durham. We've spent the last few days cleaning, unpacking, settling in, and taking care of various move-related necessities. It was with relief, and perhaps a hint of nervousness, that I left the house on Saturday, bound for my first social encounters in NC.
My first stop was All Fun & Games, a retail store in Cary, about half an hour from our new home. AF&G is a nice store, clean and well lit. The have a mix of products, including a pretty good Eurogame selection. Other than that, they sell some M:tG singles (pretty cheaply, actually), and have a small seletion of Games Workshop Miniatures and some RPG books. They also have a pretty large, clean gaming area, and a fairly sizeable library of games that can be checked out. Regularly scheduled gaming events make this a very likely destination, for me, in the future.
After visiting the store, I ran across the street to the Harris Teeter (grocery store) to pick up some snacks. From there, I made a few wrong turns but eventually made it to my first destination, a bbq gathering for Triangle Soccer Fanatics, another web-based group I'd joined months ago. After a nice time watching Ajax vs. ManU, and a little bit of Chelsea/MLS All-Stars, I was back on the road.
I wrote down the directions wrong, but still managed to find the house. Cary is a meandering miasma of circular streets, full of nice houses. Affluent and popular, it is, apparently, a very nice place to live. I grabbed my box of games (I'd selected Thurn & Taxis, Nexus Ops, and Ingenious), and headed for the door.
Larry and Carlee have a nice house, and did a good job of making space. When I arrived, unfortunately a little late, there were two five-player games about to start. I sat back to wait and see if anyone would show up. As fortune was with me, I was not a spectator long. I hardly had a chance to meet the Railroad Tycoon and Shadows Over Camelot players before three more players arrived.
Johna and Carole are new to Eurogames, and we chose Ticket to Ride as a handy and reliable introduction. We were joined quickly by Rob, described by one of the other attendees as a "TTR Shark."
I went through the rules, and dealt the cards. I ended up keeping all my tickets. I had a big seventeen with San Francisco-Atlanta, and then a couple smaller tickets involving, I think, Oklahoma City, Dallas, New York, and Sault-St. Marie.
I went into card-hoarding mode, and, to my chagrin, I wasn't getting the cards to go along with my plan. There was a lot of drawing off the top in this game. My unease was furthered when it became evident that all the players were commiting to routes in the same area that I was hoping to go through. I took what I thought would be a couple key connections, and deliberated on an alternate plan, deciding to use the tickets I had to work North from Frisco, and then around and down the East Coast.
I wasn't taking this game too seriously, as I was mainly there to meet people. Shortly after starting my new path,though, I decided to do a quick count of my remaining train cars. It turned out I was a car short of being able to complete my tickets on the current plan! Oops. Time for a new idea. I reorganized my cards and started to work from Oklahoma City through the remaining route to the East, where I could complete all my tickets by forking.
During this time, John was leaping to an early lead, clearly having figured out how to play. He efficiently collected groups of cards and claimed routes at a steady pace. Rob was taking new tickets like wild, and ended up with, I think, seven, the most I have seen someone take. I was thinking he was going to get busted, but he looked pretty pleased with himself, so I figured he must have drawn into something. He didn't get anywhere near the West coast, though, so I figured he hadn't drawn anything gigantic.
The turn after I started East, Rob, sitting immediately to my left, took the other fork of the path I needed. This meant that I could only complete all my tickets if I somehow conjured up 5 black train cards out of nowhere. Sitting on Seven blues (all that drawing off the top, remember?), I decided just to trigger the end game and take the blue six that was lying just off the tail of my aborted first alternate plan. I figured the 15 points and the chance to bust some people on tickets was worth the negative nine.
I managed to play all my cars, and all in a contiguous chain, so I had uncontested longest route (everyone else had several cars left). I jumped up to a final score of 100, which I consider pretty low. Carole came up close behind, at, I think, 97. Rob completed all but one of his tickets but, as I suspected, they weren't very big, and he finished in the high eighties/low nineties. John, it turned out, hadn't made a simple connection, and didn't complete his 20 point ticket, which, it turned out, he was taking for granted that he had done. That forty-point swing took him quite a way back, when he would have tied for second with 97 had he been tied in.
I really enjoyed this game. It was a nice, friendly yet competitive group, and the game was tense and tight with a lot of interaction. In the midgame, I really didn't expect to win, as blocked as I was, but I think biting the bullet and pushing for the game end helped me a great deal.
I went to watch the ends of the other games, and Rob, John, and Carole played Set. There was no traitor in Shadows, and the Knights were victorious. I joined the Shadows players for Tsuro while Railroad Tycoon ended.
I've not played Tsuro before. A decent looking little game, I especially liked the tiles. In this game, you play tiles with paths on them that your piece must follow as far as possible. If you hit an open tile edge, you stop. If you run into the edge of the board or another player, you're eliminated. The player to my left failed to move into the center, deciding to come up the side toward me, and I cut him off and eliminated him on the third turn. Two turns later, I eliminated the player to his left, and another player was eliminated, I think, by Larry, the host. The next turn, Larry didn't have a piece that would let him survive, so he played one that would run him into me, taking us both out of the game.
I thought Tsuro was all right, an extremely quick game that would work as airy filler. It really felt like you didn't have too many choices though, and were, in effect, just following the path laid before you. Probably decent for non-gamers, it's a game I think I would quickly tire of.
Railroad Tycoon finished, and we congregated in the main room to re-divide. Chris expressed interest in Thurn & Taxis, but, as we had ten left, and five wanted to play Puerto Rico (with new players at 11 pm), we had to get in the market for a five player. I realized I'd only brought four players with me (if only I'd ordered Santiago...), and we ended up with Ra.
I've never played this, but am aware of how highly it's regarded. I own more games by Knizia than any other designer (I'm sure this is true of many of us), and have been curious to check it out. Sadly, I am commonly terrible at auction games, apparently lacking the skill set necessary to analyze bid timing on the first play.
Well, unhappily I must report that this game proved no different. I passed on the best auction I had a chance at winning with my 15 (about half full, with, I think, no civilization - which I needed), and ended up not getting to use it that round as we drew several Ra's. A terrible round. I went into the next epoch with the 15 and 16, and was sure of great things. I acted early, trading in my 3 for a couple tiles and the 14. After that, I couldn't seem to get much going. I managed one decent auction win and then, again, the Ra's started flying. With the final round, I really didn't have a chance, but hoped to at least pick up some points. At that point, Chris was in the lead, with the young man I eliminated first from Tsuro in second. Chris managed to solidify his position very nicely, and points were picked up all around. Larry somehow went out somewhat early, although he certainly finished ahead of me. It came down to heads up between myself and, I think, Becca (not sure on the name?). Interestingly, I think I was heads up in each round, and it never really paid off for me. We each had one sun tile left, me having the higher, and I decided to spring for an auction that was full but for one piece, which would gain me a few points, but nothing huge. Becca hit the big free auction that I had been hoping for previously, and filled up nicely with monuments that gave her bonus points, two gold, and an extra pharaoh that put me tied with her for last. In the end, that big auction had just the stuff she needed to put her on top, when she had been second to last going into that round.
Ra is certainly a fun game, and it's very interesting the way you have to manage your bids. I felt like I had very little control in this game, though, with the tiles drawn in relation to your seat position being a big factor. I'd like to play it a couple more times to see what I get out of it.
After that game, it was past time for me to leave. I discussed the local gaming scene with Chris and Larry for a while, and got back on the unfamiliar roads of Cary, headed back to my new house. Reflecting on the day during the drive home, I couldn't help but be happy about how things had worked out. Honestly, I've been a little disappointed in the move, as Durham is nice but, at first blush, not that exciting (it's much larger that Iowa City, but, somehow, it seems like there's less of interest here - at least for me). I certainly miss my friends, and I'm very happy to have made these initial contacts.
Looks like I'll have gaming as regularly as I'm willing to drive to Cary or host events.
GG, GL
JW
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