Games at Ravindra’s: Sheer Panic, Byzantium, Ricochet Robot, Liar’s Dice

Saturday, October 7th

I had the pleasure of playing a few games with Ravindra (RP) at TBGT, mainly through knowing Justin G.. We generally had a good time, and I discerned that Ravindra and I had some game interests in common. I was happy to get another chance to game with him when he sent out an invitation to the Durham Gamers group to meet up at his place.

Initially, I thought I’d be late due to my Rainbow League soccer game. However, the game was cancelled, due to rain, and I was able to join RP and Greg at Sitar India Palace for the dilectible buffet. After stuffing myself on spicy dishes of rice, vegetables, and chicken, I grabbed some espresso and headed off to rural Hillsborough.

This is the most “out in the country” I’ve been since coming to NC. RP’s place is a little secluded, and it reminded me of the first time I visited Bonnie Anderson’s cabin in Wisconsin, years ago, for a Halloween party. Of course, this wasn’t quite as strange, as Bonnie had near human-sized cocoons hanging from trees in the woods surrounding her house… (a former art project of Tom Charney’s). Nor did I enter the house to find a gaggle of costumed folk, although there were Halloween decorations. Suffice it to say, it’s a nice house, and Ravindra has the largest private collection of games I’ve had the pleasure to encounter.

It was just the three of us, but Brian called to let Ravindra know that he’d be over in 45 minutes or so. We grabbed a “quickie” to carry us into that time. Greg and I hadn’t played Sheer Panic before, so Ravindra went over the rules, which actually took a while, as he had to look some stuff up. We finally got it down, and set to getting those ewes on the move.

Sheer Panic

SP is a game about moving sheep around. You have a limited number of actions you can take during the game, to move your own sheep, and others, to get into good scoring positions, the nature of which change across the different phases. You each have two sheep, and, with three players, there are two “neutral” sheep. There’s also a black sheep, and some extra pieces that represent the different scoring phases and the front of the herd, which can be important. In the first phase, you try to get your sheep close together. In the second phase, you try to get them close to the front. In the third phase, you work for proximity to the black sheep. In the fourth and final phase, the sheep are scored from the rear, and during two times scoring is triggered, the first row of sheep is removed for sheering.

I don’t have too much to say about this game. It seemed that the moves were moderately obvious, with the biggest choice being to take what might be a stronger move for the future versus getting a free “ram slam” available on the scoring/turn track. The moves are small, but can have a big effect on the board position. This means, though, that by your turn, things can have changed greatly. We stayed pretty close through the whole game, never separated by more than a couple points. In the final turn, Ravindra lost a sheep early, and looked pretty much like playing kingmaker. Thankfully, he chose a move that benefited me more than Greg, and I ended up winning a close shave (I really couldn’t help that, could I?).

Brian had arrived, and had to wait a while for us to finish. After getting the pieces bundled back into the box, it was time to choose the main course of the evening. There were a lot of possibilities. I had brought Canal Mania, but I was really more interested in playing it with four, and it didn’t seem that Brian had liked it that much. Unfortunately, it seemed that one of us had a little problem with each of the first several games that were put forth. I gave a blanket “yes” to whatever might be put forth. Finally, Brian and Greg agreed on Byzantium, and we settled down at the table.

Byzantium

This is a Martin Wallace game from Warfrog. It involves the struggle between the remnants of the Byzantine Empire and emerging Muslim forces in, I think, the seventh century. Each player represents a powerful family that has influence in both the Arab and Byzantine worlds. You have a military army for each side, which can attack and conquer cities, or defend your own cities. There are three turns, each involving the players taking turns choosing from several available actions, until everyone passes, at which time you get income based on the number, size, and type of cities you control. Some actions, like moving and attacking with an army, anyone can take as many times as they can afford. Other actions, like fortifying a city, or utilizing a fleet, are limited, and can only be taken, depending on the action, 1-3 times per turn (total). You score victory points during the game for taking cities with military force, and at the end for the cities you control. There are separate victory tracks for each of the two factions. You want to be a little careful about balancing your influence – if, at the end of the game, one of your sets of victory points is more than twice as big as the other, you only count that one for your total. Otherwise, you add the two together.

The explanation of the rules took a while, as Ravindra had only played once, and it had been a while. We got everything pretty much worked out, though (although Brian appeared to sleep through part of the rules), and got to playing. I’ve been sitting on this entry a while, and I don’t remember as much about this game as I probably should. One thing I do remember is that I misinterpreted the rules a little. You have to use a cube, of which you have a limited supply each turn, to do most actions. You have some free cubes, and otherwise you have to pay three units of money (which is a lot) to buy a cube to use. The armies have move cubes, which you put on them through one of the actions. You only have to spend one of these to move and attack. I think I spent a couple extra cubes early, before I realized this, tossing an extra cube to add cubes and to move. I wasn’t super sure about exactly what I did, though, so, maybe not… Anyway, I made one good setup choice, taking the big, Southernmost Arab city. I then blew a couple moves, taking cities that were in the area that was susceptible to Bulgar attack – a sort of “mercenary” army that can be hired by either of your factions and, as we discovered, can be a good source of Arab victory points (at least, that’s how it turned out for the other players).

As the game progressed, I was doing all right in Arab victory, and staying around the back on Byzantine victory. However, it became fairly obvious to me about halfway through the second turn that I was in trouble. I was losing a lot of Byzantine income, and my remaining cities were right in the path of two oncoming Arab armies, which was also keeping my Byzantine army penned in. One ironic thing is that Brian, who slept through some of the rules, remembered something that I didn’t – that a Byzantine army, moving to Constantinople, can move to any coastal city on it’s next turn. This would have been important knowledge for me, had I remembered it… As it was, I was forced to bemoan my own stupidity and poor memory, as Brian remembered and used this move at the very end of the game, when my army had long since moved away.

The other players slowly edged ahead of me. Brian had a slim lead, followed by Greg and Ravindra, with me a bit behind. In the third turn, unfortunately, I remained a prime target, while Ravindra also lost some, with very little being done to attack Brian or Greg. At the close of the game, due to a poor choice I’d made earlier, and someone making a last attack on me, I couldn’t pay upkeep for all my troops, and I lost a victory point. Brian won by a considerable margin, followed by Greg, with Ravindra and I trailing behind, with me ending up getting fourth by one point.

This was fairly fun – really, it was a good group of guys to game with. The game had some interesting things going on, like the dual-faction system, and the special action selection. It’s also a decent multi-player wargame. I’d like to play it again, to see what I learned, but I don’t think I’ll be looking toward picking it up. I don’t think I really need another game that can put you in a position where you know you’ve lost but still have to play when the game is only half over. Some secret info/victory bonuses might have been nice.

It was fairly late, and Greg and Brian were ready to go, but agreed to a quick “ten-minute” game. Ravindra removed Randolph’s Ricochet Robot from his reserves, and we readied ourselves for a rumble of rebounding. Again, a game I’d not played before.

Ricochet Robot

I was happy to learn this. The most recent issue of Knucklebones features an article about the designer, Alex Randolph, who was a contemporary of Sid Sackson, and co-worker at 3M. He’s also known for Twixt and Inkognito, among a host of other games. The game is simple, and quick, and can be played by a large number of people. There’s a semi-variable, four-section board, with several target-spaces marked by chits with color and symbol identifiers. There are also four robots of different colors. One player takes a token out of the supply, and the players begin to formulate, for themselves, moves that will allow them to send the robot of that color to the target space of that color and symbol. Whenever your robot hits something-a wall or another robot-you can either stop and move something else, or turn it 90 degrees in either direction and keep moving. Once you’ve worked out a route in your head, you say the number of moves it would take. This is like an opening bid, and the other players have one minute to equal or beat your number. The player who can make it in the fewest moves gets the token. In the case of a tie, the player who has the least tokens gets it. You leave the robots in their current positions and go again… as many times as you like.

This was simple, quick, and fun, and I’d be happy to add it to my collection. I think it would be fine for certain groups of non-gamers as well. In our particular play, Ravindra and Brian tied with five tokens, and Greg had four. I think I had three, but I might have had four also. There’s some laughs in this game – when someone just can’t see a move, and then, after it’s done, someone finds a simple way to solve it. Also, when someone miss-calls a number, or can’t remember all the moves they wanted to program. Good times, but we played a bit longer than ten minutes.

Oddly, though the hour was getting quite late, Greg and Brian were now ready for more. Perhaps it had passed the point at which they could expect anything else out of the night other than sleep, and they’d decided to make the most of it. I don’t know. Liar’s dice came down for what was almost certainly the closer (I actually don’t know if they stopped on this, as I left before the second game was over).

Liar’s Dice

Another first for me, though not a true first. I’d had this game explained to me in college, and I’d played a version of it at TBGT (pirate’s dice). A fairly simple dice game. Each player starts with five dice and a cup. Dice are numbered 2-6, with the one replaced by a star, which is wild. Beginning with the start player, bids are made. A player bids a number of dice showing a certain number that they think are present under all the cups combined. The next player can either call, or raise. If they call, the dice are revealed. If the number of dice exceeds the bid, the caller loses a number of dice equal to the difference. If it’s equal, everyone but the player being called loses one die. If the number doesn’t match the bid, the bidder loses a number of dice equal to the difference. If you lose all your dice, you’re out of the game.

In the first round, I played somewhat conservatively, and was second to last out, losing to Brian. In the second game, I played quite rashly, and was out very quickly. At this point, I decided it would be a good idea to hit the road, as I was getting somewhat tired, and knew I had a somewhat lengthy and unfamiliar ride through the dark ahead of me. Ravindra graciously saw me off, and, as far as I know, the gaming continued into the night.

Outside of TBGT, this was the best night of gaming I’ve had since I got down here. I hope I can get in more Saturday evening sessions like this.

GG, GL
JW