Shipyard (23 December 2009)

Lance's new game, called Shipyard, has lots of bits and the setup instructions didn't seem clear. It is an extension of the rondel system four different rondels each with a single pawn give access to different resources or bonuses on future actions and there is a strange rondel inspired race track for the actions. The actions are tiles which sit on the race track and move to the front of the race each time they are executed. The player's pawns move backwards and forwards from action to action. Only one pawn is allowed per action, though you can execute actions other pawns are on for $6 (equal to your starting capital). Once you have moved your pawn to an action you collect a dollar for each other person's pawn who is ahead of you on the track and then execute your action.

You are building ships from hull bits (bows, sterns and middle bits), adding engines, sails, crew etc. A finished ship scores points and then goes for a shakedown cruise which can gain you more points. There are bonus points cards which give you more points at the end of the game.

It is a game about managing your resources efficiently. As we were learning we didn't concentrate on frustrating each other too much. We did find that with four players there were rhythms set up which meant that two players tended to get locked out of gaining income each turn if the other two players continually chose actions at the back to maximised their incomes.

Choosing the right bonus cards and working towards them can double your basic points as Jarratt demonstrated.

Jarratt 115
Lance    84
John B   79
Ian      64

Friday 18 December 2009

This was the last Friday night games at Hobson St for 2009.

John B and Carl said they would be an hour late so Anne decided we would play Expedition. The game was played almost entirely in red and blue. Yellow didn't get any further than Rome, before being turned around and going to Svalbard. I finished the game but Nigel won with a great score.

Nigel 22
Ian   18
Anne  18

John and Carl arrived as we were play the penultimate round of Expedition. I was keen to play Age of Steam after looking at my game played statistics and not seeing many plays. I made a plug for Italy as it was the only board out of the basic 9 that I had yet to play. There weren't any other strong opinions (apart from negative ones about other boards) so I got my way. Italy is an expansion without towns (and hence no Urbanisation), where you can only build one complete link per turn and where black cubes are used to reduce people's incomes. John, Carl and Anne had all played before and they offered various advice, such as:

• Sometimes it is worth taking shares just to build track (shares only cost 2 VP and are not limited to 15)
  
• The southern half of the board starts close to the top
• Beware the red-blue sink-hole of Rome
• People might take Urbanisation (which replaces 2 black cubes with random ones) just to prevent someone else taking it
  

In the first turn Anne built between Torino and Milano, Carl built from Roma to Firenze, Nigel between Genova and Milano, I built from Bari to Napoli and John who lurked at the bottom of turn order for free for the first few turns built Milano to Trento. John and Anne cooperated to link-up and deliver across each other's network. Anne, John and Nigel followed each other around the cities of northern Italy, while Carl and I built north to Bologna and Roma respectively. He then built east to Ancona (a link I had my eye on) so I went south to Brindisi.

Anne's track linked all the northern cities from Genova to Venezia, John built to Genova at one end and down to Verona and Bologna. While Nigel and Carl passed each other in opposite directions, Nigel going south via Verona and Livernoto to Firenze, while Carl built to Verona and Venezia. I built long links down to "verso la Sicilia" and up to Bologna. These links meant that I had a long lead up the share track, a lead I never looked likely to loosing (in fact I threatened to lap the more frugal players) .

There was tough competition for track around Bolognia and Verona. In there end we were running out of viable builds due either to the lack of entry points to cities and the lack of available complex track to build in the crowded north. The lack of a direct, or even a simple indirect, route between Genova and Bolognia frustrated most of us when we were looking around for cubes to move. Nigel and Carl grabbed entry points to cities I wanted to build to by being ahead of me in the turn order at the time. Anne annoyed Carl by moving a black cube four spaces across his track, but none of anyone else's. Otherwise people tended to share around the effects of black cubes.

Given that we are used to subtracting the shares issued from the income track to get an idea how well players are doing we found it more difficult to judge how well people were doing in Italy with its different formula for victory points. So I was surprised to do as well as third and see Carl come last.

I did feel some satisfaction as a railway builder to have built a track from the French border to the tip of the Italian boot and used one of the special complex Italian track tiles.

Nigel  black  93+22-18 = 97
Anne   purple 90+13-14 = 89
Ian    yellow 93+26-36 = 83
John B green  84+10-14 = 80
Carl   red    81+15-18 = 78

I can see that the rule that each person can only build one link tends to mean that everyone stays in lock-step on the Locomotive track and builds long routes rather than looping track (at least with 5 players). But I can also see that best play of the black cubes needs all players to have a good idea of how well the players are doing with respect to each other. Poor judgement could lead to someone being unfairly targeted. I am certainly keen to give this expansion another go.

Craig's BBQ Games, 12 December 2009

It had been Craig's birthday on Friday and he had arranged a BBQ for the Saturday, which was, typically for Wellington, overcast and windy. Mostly we ate and talked but a few games also got played. Initially once the food was out of the way Carl wanted to introduce his older brother to Endeavor. I started off with a Workshop and the #-zero Slave card to get me access to the level 3 buildings, but my strategy wasn't very clear beyond that point and my game didn't take off as expected. Carl chose a shipping heavy strategy with lots of culture and he got Governor card after Governor card. Rene had a more balanced strategy with plenty of culture, finance and politics.

Rene 60
Carl 60
Ian  55

After most people had left I taught Edel Stein & Reich to Leonie and Travis. This game turned out to be much more dynamic with respect to gem redistribution than Friday night's game, partly due to the event which made us discard half our gems. Craig's strategy of playing and loosing games on his birthday (as tradition dictates) paid off and he beat me by a $1,000,000.

Craig  66
Ian    65
Leonie 60
Travis 52
Anne   46

Leonie deserted us to play World of Warcraft and Jarratt arrived. There was a period of indecision about what to play which was resolved in favour of Timbuktu. Jarratt screwed up his information recording system on the first turn and lost 7 things in the first round, but then didn't loose anything else for the rest of the game. Craig lost the least on the first round but later caught us up. Water was least favourite commodity for the thieves to steal.

Jarratt 120
Travis   98
Ian      92
Anne     90
Craig    87

It's been a good week of gaming with three gaming sessions in the week.

Friday 11 December 2009

It's been two years since I last played Quo Vadis?, which is far too long for a game I enjoy though rarely do well at. It is quite a short game and we played it twice, and John won twice.

John B 24
Anne   19
Ian    18
Craig  16
Nigel  16 (not in Senate)

John B 26
Craig  21
Nigel  15
Anne   14
Ian    21 (not in Senate)

I then taught Edel, Stein & Reich (John had played before but had forgotten). This is an odd game where players must simultaneously choose their actions. If you are the only person to choose that type of action, you get to do it. If three or more people choose the same type of action then none of them get to do it. If two people choose the same type of action then they barter jewels with each other to choose which of them will do the action. At the three scoring points in the game there is a payout for majorities in each colour of jewels and then people who scored loose some of their jewels. The collecting of jewels became less important by the third round as the supply drained and majorities became entrenched.

Anne   64
John R 63
Craig  57
Nigel  45
Ian    26

Up to this point there seems to have been theme of psychological games, involving direct negotiation and/or bluffing, which makes a change from the more standard Eurogames we play. Craig went home (having won no games on his birthday) and we switched back to more orthodox gaming by finishing the evening with my new game of Nefertiti. I didn't get any Seals and missed a great play that would have landed me 4 out of 5 gold head-dresses. John did much better than any of us, with the only intermediate scoring and generally more stuff.

John B 139
Anne    77
Nigel   75
Ian     72

Wednesday 9 December 2009

Peter couldn't host his usual Wednesday night games and Anne was out at a peer review meeting. So on Wednesday night five of us sat down around my dining table to choose a game. We had almost decided when John R turned up to make the dreaded six and we split into two threes to play Samurai and Endeavor.

John and I gave Nigel a brief refresher on the rules of Samurai and we got started. Last time I played Samurai I chose to start with the 3 Rice Paddy, 3 High Hat, 3 Buddha, a Ship and either a Samurai or Horseman tile. This gave me flexibility but it also meant I couldn't easily specialise, which is problematic in a game where winning depends on getting majorities. This time I started with the intention of winning a bunch of Rice Paddies so I chose two Rice Paddy tiles (including my 4) and no High Hat or Buddha tiles. Unfortunately it looked like John had a similar idea and he started winning more Rice Paddies than me, Nigel wasn't winning much early on but he had his claws into Buddhas so I switched to High Hats. This paid off and I ended up not only with the most stuff but also the only majority. Nigel and I played regionally, he concentrated at the northern end of Honshu while I was lord of Kyushu (Shikoku was pretty much ignored).

At the other end of the table Endeavor was being played. Samurai is an intense game so I wasn't concentrating on what was going on at that end of the table, but I could see Andrew P had started with two workshops to rush up the top level buildings, he also picked up quite a lot of cards. I noticed that Andrew H was doing quite a bit of shipping. The final scores were reasonably close.

Andrew H 70
Andrew P 67
Anna     63

After our three player games the consensus was to play a six player game. We seem to have hit six players at our place disturbingly often lately. I know some people say you shouldn't play six player games but there are times when people want to play together for social reasons. We've tried: Expedition, Elfenland, Pizarro & Co, TransAmerica, Hornochsen, Stichlen, Mamma Mia!, Mogul, Chicago Express, Alhambra, Acquire, Bohnanza and Frank's Zoo (and that doesn't include Lance's Birthday). I think Expedition was the most successful of the easy to learn games, while Pizarro & Co., Mogul and Chicago Express would work better with more experienced players. I think Acquire was the least successful 6 player game.

Andrew and Anna vetoed Elfenland as they thought it was too long for not much game. By some process or other we ended up choosing Medici (yet another auction game). Most of us needed to be taught or re-taught Medici (and I didn't do a very good job). In the first round people were keen on auctioning off 2 or 3 cards at a time, but in later rounds the tactics around auctioning single cards became apparent. After the first round I was in the low 50s and well ahead of everyone else. After the second round I was in the mid 50s and most people were clustered just behind me. In the third round Nigel nearly bankrupted himself but he and John who had been lurking at the back of the pack, launched themselves into the lead, while I finished in the mid 50s again! I think people enjoyed themselves despite being confused at the start.

John R   75
Nigel    71
Andrew P 59
Ian      56
Anna     55
Andrew H 50

The Rio Grande edition of Medici is a masterpiece in bad graphics design. Badly organised rules where you can't quickly look things up. Player boards where you can't see the 5 card spaces. Cards where you can't read the numbers at a distance (and 3s and 5s look similar). It is difficult to match the commodity cards to the commodity tracks on the board and the score/money track is also hard to read and use (it only has odd numbers printed on it). I promised myself I would wait for a better edition but I finally caved in when Wargames Supply had it on special. From BGG it looks like some of the other editions are not perfect either. (I also noticed that some editions have bonus values of 5, 10, 20 on the commodity tracks and other's only have 10, 20. While the French version has multiple rounds of bidding and other rule changes).

Here is a variant that reduces the luck in 3 and 4 player Medici.

Anne came home and Anna and both Andrews left and Nigel suggested we finish with R-Eco (probably his favourite filler game). As usual I did badly, while Anne thrashed us.

Anne  16
Nigel  5
John R 3
Ian   -2

Saturday 5 December 2009

The Phoenix were playing at the Westpac stadium on Friday night, so I moved games to Saturday night. Anne went to Sydney for a wedding.

There were six of us and no-one had any strong ideas about what to play so we ended up playing a game we were all familiar with - Expedition. Craig and John got off to a good start while Andrew and Travis lagged behind. The blue expedition went in and out of North Africa before wandering all over Asia and then crossed the Atlantic to Central and South America where Travis was eager to take advantage of it but it looped and resurface heading for Australia before heading out across the South Pacific where it ended. So we had to turn our attention to red which had gone to Canada and across the Bering Straight and yellow which hadn't left Europe. The yellow expedition looped back and then headed for the USA before I fatefully took it to Africa playing into Craig's hands. Craig was happy with his win, which he regarded as redemption for his performance on Lance's birthday.

Craig  15
John B 14
Andrew 11
Anna   11
Ian     9
Travis  2

Staying with the route building theme we moved onto Elfenland, a game which I have almost never played with less than six people. I wonder if there is something about route building games that allows them to scale to lots of players better than other types of game. Expedition, Elfenland, TransAmerica and a few other train games scale up to 6 players better than many other games do. It is even practical to play Expedition and TransAmerica with 7 players. These three games have a cooperative element to their route building, though that doesn't make them 'nice and friendly' games! Unlike 'real' cooperative games, these are games where you want others to help you more than you help them.

This turned out to be a very even game where we played the traditional way by keeping our blocks until the last round. We tried hard and successfully to block Craig who only had three markers to pick up in the last round. Nobody got to all the cities but most people ended up on their home city.

Craig  19
Andrew 19
Ian    19
John B 18
Travis 18
Anna   17

At this point Andrew, Anna and Travis went home and I encouraged John and Craig to try my new purchase, Nefertiti. Andrew claims I have a "thing" for auction games. I think it is that game designers have a "thing" for auctions. I guess about 20% of the games I own involve auctions. But Andrew is right in the sense that auctions are a mechanic I like and there are some short to medium length games I enjoy that are pretty much all auction.

Nefertiti reminds me of the action (auction?) phase of Vegas Showdown except that everyone has 4 bid markers and you don't move your bid marker just because someone bids higher. Each auction (or market) contains 4 cards and a royal seal (which can be used to do a special action in a future turn). The winner of the auction will get either two of the cards or one card and the seal. Unlike most other auction games the other bids are not worthless. In bid order each player can choose to buy one of the remaining cards for the amount they bid or take half the money in market rounded up (this leads to a 'zero-sum' feature similar to Traumfabrik). The cards are gifts for Queen Nefertiti and at the end of the game the players earn points (kudos?) for the presents they have for the queen. For example necklaces are worth 14 points each if only one player has necklaces but 10 points each if they are split between two players and 7 points each if split between 3 or 4 players. Similarly harps are worth 9 or 7 or 5 points each depending on how many players have them. The conclusion / resolution of an auction is triggered by different conditions in different markets. In Luxor the resolution is triggered by a player throwing a particular dice roll, whereas the market in Abu Simbel is resolved when the sum of the bids reaches a particular number. The special action cards are all face up and each turn a player can spend a royal seal to take a card do the action and discard it out of the game. This seems better than drawing random power cards as you would in say Amun-Re or Tower of Babel.

John tried to hog all the money and at one point Craig and I only had one coin between us, but he couldn't hang onto all of it and money flowed back into the game. Craig and I took advantage of a couple of special actions to score some of our cards early, so we had around 55-60 points going into the final scoring but John's large pile of cards payed off and he over took Craig. John pointed out that in my final turn I could have traded to give myself even more points.

Ian    160
John B 126
Craig  119