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