Friday 26 February 2010

With 20-20 Cricket on Friday night and Super 14 Rugby on Saturday night I thought that drivers would be put off regardless of which night we chose to have games so I didn't expect much of a turn out. But it my predictions are often wrong. Margot and Jim (who were introduced by Luke) have been thinking of coming for awhile finally showed up this Friday. Andrew and Anna brought their friends from Brisbane (Kevin and Ann).

We split up to play a couple of Reiner Knizia games: Rheinländer and Traumfabrik. Kevin put his teaching skill to good use bringing Nigel up to speed with Rheinländer, which is a game of conquest where aggression is not always the best policy. Anna grabbed lots of quick castle based dukedoms while Anne went for cities and suffered when other people merged her dukedoms. Andrew complained at the end that everyone was picking on him!

Anna   38
Kevin  33
Anne M 32
Nigel  28
Andrew 21

On the other table I taught Ann, Margot and Jim how to make films in this German view of Hollywood. Ann and Margot quietly made a lot of films while John and I tried for quality over quantity and Jim had trouble hiring film stars (which meant he was shunned at the Hollywood parties) and he made some trashy movies. The scores were unusually close with the awards being spread quite evenly.

Ann    66
Ian    64
Margot 62
Jim    55
John B 53

Ann and Kevin wanted an early night so Andrew and Anna took them home. Leaving 6 of us. We made what was probably a bad decision and decided to play a six player game, as there are not many good six player games. After a lot of discussion we settled on Elfenland, a game of planning and frustration. The first round went well with most people getting to six of their cities. In fact things were pretty close at the end of the third round but in the fourth round the blockers came out and Anne suffered the worst ending up four cities from home with only 14 cities visited. It was a three way tie for first with Nigel, John and Margot all home with 18 cities visited.

Margot 18
Nigel  18
John B 18
Ian    17
Jim    16
Anne   10

Margot suggested that a timer might be a useful addition, Anne suggested playing without blocking tiles and John suggested that instead of giving everyone a blocking tile, that the blocking tiles should be shuffled into the pile of tiles.

May be we should have played TransAmerica or King Me.

Friday 19 February 2010

At lunch time Andrew Rae invited me to a lunch time play testing session in Frank Kitts Park. There were 7 of us so we broke into a 3 and a 4 to play v2 of Dawn of Nations. Jeff and I drew against Andrew with a War/Divine Favour/Decline and Fall strategy while Andrew tried a doomed Trade strategy. The new version of Dawn of Nations doesn't have the central sheet and the Wonder of the World scores negative if you fail to complete it (which put people off trying for it). Then we tried their new game, which is a real-time free form trading game against a timer. Where you are trying to collect the correct cards to match both public/shared goals and private goals. The designers watched 5 newbies play. We were too excited to put our cards down at the correct times. I won with a run of goals towards the end.

In the evening Anna, Andrew and Nigel all showed up together and I started putting 5 player games on the table. People were discussing what they wanted to play when John showed up, invalidating many of the 5 player games. Anne suggested we start with a six player game (as she thought it would be more social). John suggested Atlantic Star which John, Anne and I have played a lot (though not much in recent years). It was Andrew and Anna's first time and possibly Nigel's second.

John made the best decisions about what colours to go for (a quick yellow for a loan, and finishing as the only player going for blue, with minimal competition in between). I made some silly decisions like blowing 6,000 out of my last 7,000 on uselessly clearing the deck and going for green at the same time as two other people (who played before me). Experience counts in Atlantic Star and the scores bear this out.

Ian    47
Anne   46
John B 41
Anna   38
Nigel  26
Andrew 23

We then split into two threes. Anne and Nigel taught Anna Brass at one end of the table while John and I taught Andrew Metropolys at the other end. In the first game I felt I didn't have much control, though I did manage to get some of my pieces on the right colours and even some linked together. Andrew on the other hand seemed to do nothing wrong.

Andrew 36
John B 28
Ian    23

In game two John ran away with the game. I only got my 4 largest pieces on the board and Andrew only got 5 or 6 pieces. It was the most one sided result I've seen so far.

John B 34
Ian    11
Andrew  8

John went home and as Brass was a long way from finishing Andrew and I played Battle Line twice and still had time to watch the last 2 or 3 rounds of Brass. I won the first game with a break through against the run of play and won the second by winning the last flag with the last card in the draw deck. Nigel who, complained about how badly he was doing won Brass with a colossal score.

Nigel 174
Anne  167 (income 64)
Anna  167 (income 53)

Nigel had a tried to build his high tech cotton mills in the canal phase but failed to flip them, so he was lagging on the score track at half time. I think Anna built both her level 2 Ship Building Yards.

Birthday Games (13 February 2010)

It was a bit hectic the weekend before my birthday with the Wellington Sevens plus being out of town for half the week, so I organised my birthday games for the following weekend.

Peter, Michelle, Abbey, Lara and Lance were the first people to arrive. They arrived at the same time that my friend Graeme rang up and by the time I was off the phone On the Underground was on the table. Even though Peter has owned this game much longer than Anne has, it was Michelle's first time.

Michelle 34
Ian      31
Lance    30
Anne     29
Peter    28

While we were playing Abbey and Lara played some Mancala, and more people arrived. Brandon brought a huge box of games including Hoity Toity which he played with John B, Craig, Leonie and Nigel.

After On the Underground Michelle played Trans America with Siobhan, Abbey and Lara. While I taught Peter Sylla, Christians were persecuted, the slave revolted and the Senate was purged. John was first Consul, I was the second, John was third, Lance fourth and I the last and Peter stayed out of politics.

Lance  61
John R 59
Peter  50
Ian    50

Meanwhile yet more people had arrived and John B taught Craig and Luke Hansa Teutonica, Brandon introduced Leonie and Anne to Villa Paletti. Then Siobhan, Abbey, Lara and Michelle had a go. The third game involved 3 pairs Brandon and Anne, Siobhan and Leonie, Michelle and Lara.

It was heading towards dinner time and Peter, Michelle and girls left, so we were looking for short games Brandon pulled out High Society and Luke, Nigel and I joined him. At 5:30pm I optimistically thought that I could teach and play Traders of Cathage in 30 minutes. Lance got one more VP than John R but neither actually counted their VPs!

After a pot luck dinner involving Craig's Guinness pie, Brandon's pasta, Luke's chicken curry, Claire's vegi-curry, Anne's cake, and my quiche, we went back to games. Brandon, Luke, Travis and Nigel played Ys. Leonie, Craig, Frog and John R played Factory Manager. While I pulled out another of my unplayed games: Owner's Choice. This turns out to be a really light dice based share trading game. In game one:

Lance  $1190
Claire  $880
Anne    $840
Ian     $790

In game two we made much more money

Lance  $1430
Ian    $1400
Anne   $1300
Claire $1060

Siobhan was keen on joining a game so we played Villa Paletti a colourful Jenga-like dexterity game which she played with no fear. After all she was the only one of us who had played before. Who cares who won?

Claire left, as did Craig, Leonie and Siobhan and Nasia had arrived in time to play Traumfabrik with Anne, Frog and John R. Meanwhile who knows why Nigel was keen on Reef Encounter, but it had been so long since any of us had played with had to relearn it (even Lance). When Lance pulled off a sneaky coral dominance move Nigel himself started to doubt the wisdom of wanting to play this game.

I did well with my first piece of coral but lost my way after that. While Luke made an amazing run from the back to win in his first game.

Luke  73
Lance 64
Nigel 59
Ian   50

It was close to 2am before Anne and I got to bed after a very successful birthday games. And the tradition of the birthday boy not winning on their birthday continues unbroken.

Friday 5 February 2010

It was a rare hot, calm summer evening in Wellington with the sounds of a party at Wellington Girls Collage drowning out the sounds of the Sevens at Westpac Stadium and people were more comfortable on the deck than inside. So we took the dining table out onto deck and played until the fireworks went off at the stadium. Though we did have a break mid-evening to eat Nigel's vegan apple crumble.

At the far end of the table John B and Travis beat me at Sylla while the near end Anna won El Grande.

It was the first time for everyone at Sylla and we were not sure what stuff was worth. John hovered on zero for much of the game though he was grabbing more tokens than Travis and I. I found that the game reminded me a little bit of In the Year of the Dragon as you are constantly planning for negative events (and you recruit character cards), though there is more interaction in Sylla than In the Year of the Dragon.

John B 69
Travis 53
Ian    52

In El Grande the others were so eager to get inside that they had packed up the scoring pieces before Anne got back outside with my note book! So these scores are reconstructed from memory

Anna   95
Nigel  88
Anne   86
Andrew 72

To be honest it was getting a bit chilly to be playing board games outside once it got dark, but I think that the following evening was a lot warmer, proving that once in awhile Wellington can turn on nice summer evenings.