Friday 6 August 2010

It was good to see Jim and Margot again after such a long time.

On the Underground
Anne taught this game to Margot. I hear that there was a tendency to build lines parallel to each other, and also a reluctance to join across the centre of the board. In the end it was a draw between Margot and Andrew.

Margot   45
Andrew P 45
Anne     43
Nigel    24

In the Year of the Dragon
It's been awhile since we played this game and we had to refer to the rules while explaining them to Jim. The events were in 2 groups of 5, with pairs of events well spaced.

We all took turns in leading on the people track. John, then Jim then me. John on the other hand led on the VP track from the beginning due to his strategy of starting at the front of the people track and buying a double favour on the first turn (hence temporarily bankrupting himself) and taking money on the second turn.

John B 101
Jim     90
Ian     85

R-Eco
On the Underground finished well before In the Year of the Dragon and Nigel suggested playing R-Eco, and he ran away with the first game. Despite being simple, it is quite difficult to teach as it is not like other card games. The theme is recycling and waste management. You are trying to win tokens by supplying the recycling centres with the right goods, and avoid illegal dumping (i.e. keeping your hand to 5 cards or fewer). You can only play cards of one suit and every time you play cards you are forced to pick up cards.

Nigel  10
Andrew  3
Anne    2
Margot  0

In the second game Anne and Andrew did much better.

Anne   10
Andrew  8
Nigel   6
Margot  2

Masters Gallery
I gave Jim a quick introduction to Masters Gallery, which was probably too quick for him to pick up all the details. Probably the most important thing I failed to get across is the inflation in value of paintings throughout the game. Painting in the first round tend to be worth zero to three points each whereas by the last round they can easily be worth seven or eight points each.

John B 14 34 67 106
Ian     6 35 68  98
Jim    19 45 74  89

Traders of Carthage
I hadn't noticed Susumu Kawasaki's name before, except to notice a Japanese name on two of my card games. But he designed both R-Eco and Traders of Carthage.

In this game the cards in your hand are either money to buy stuff or to protect your goods from pirates. The goods you buy are cards in the market, which you put in front of you. The cards in front of you are grouped by suit (each suit represents one of the four ships on the board). As you buy goods the ships move forward and when they reach Carthage there is a pay day (and pirates strike at any ships on the two spaces before Carthage). Again it is harder to explain than to play. Though it is even harder to get the strategy right.

At the end I only had red goods and the market never had red goods for me to buy, so I kept refusing to buy because the game would end without me scoring any points. But resistance is futile, as Andrew and Anne kept filling their ships in the mean time and once they arrived in Carthage it was all over and I was thrashed.

Andrew P 22
Anne     15
Ian      11