Labour Weekend Gaming

Friday Night - Around the World
Anne challenged me to a game of Expedition which I won 25-16. She then demanded a rematch which was a closer event. This time I finished all my cards scoring 22, but I had started the game so Anne got the final turn, finishing her last card and an extra card to beat me 23-22. In our final game I got my lowest score of the evening -- winning 19-15.

Saturday - Indian Summer
Jarratt and Lance organised a game of 1853 at Lance's house. It was the first time for all of us, so none of us were familiar with the map, companies and the opening bidding procedure. 1853 is an older design than 1830 and owes its design more to railway pioneering 1829 than the Robber Baron 1830. The stock market works in a simple way and is not susceptible to manipulation. In other 18XX games there are private companies which need to be bought before the players can buy shares in the main companies. These private companies are usually on sold to the majors mid-game for a profit. This serves a dual purpose, reducing the players' initial capital by varying amounts and providing a reward for company directors. In 1853 there are no private companies, instead the players' initial capital is reduced by a simultaneous bid which determines the initial seating order and first player. The bid amount is held in escrow until the towns you nominate in second part of the process are linked up. The amount you bid limits which towns you undertake to link up. These towns limit which shares you can initially buy. As in the other 18XX games, the amount you have left over determines which of the major companies you can capitalize in the first turn. Once the towns you nominated are linked to each other by railway then you get your escrowed money back.

At beginning at least three of us had the same idea about with towns to nominate and which initial shares to buy. We also all bid pretty low (Anne bid £85, I bid £82 and Lance and Jarratt bid £80). None us took into account that bidding less than £90 means you can't nominate a £50 city. Anne took a share of the North Western Railway and it was clear that she had the same idea that Jarratt and I had, so we had to rethink our ideas. I took Bombay, Baroda and Central India (BBCI) share and Jarratt took an East Coast Railway (ECR) share. Lance hadn't formulated a plan when bidding and after a bit of thinking bought a Bengal Nagpur Railway share.

Another point of difference with 1853 is that there are two types of track (and engines): broad gauge and narrow gauge. This adds an extra level of decision making. Jarratt built his ECR as a narrow gauge railway, which is cheaper to build but the trains have a shorter "reach". Anne's initial planning and highest bid paid off as she got an early lead in making income. I found myself stymied initially by the tile options. There are no yellow city tiles with a straight piece of track (cities are all on curves) and later on by the territorial limitations. Each company has a territory and it can't upgrade track outside its area, hence I couldn't link up to the BNR network and join Delhi to Calcutta.

Like the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad which failed to build to Santa Fe, the Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway never built to Bombay, preferring to stay near Delhi. There was a bit of selling off of stock (especially in Anne's NWR) as players started second rail companies (but unlike 1830 and 1856 selling stock doesn't necessarily lead to a share price drop). Near the end of the game I switched three shares to a better performing stock but otherwise people kept the shares they bought.

Lance's shareholdings in the best performing companies and Jarratt's southern narrow gauge loop propelled them past Anne. In the end we called the game early and faked two operating rounds to give the final result.

Lance    £8424
Jarratt  £7744
Anne     £7004
Ian      £6785

1853 is a game which had a large number of suggested rule changes over the years to fix its original faults. Lance owns the latest version which has quite a number of changes to the original rules, map etc.

Saturday night - Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes
After a quick stop in J'ville to pick up some KFC and in Thorndon to drop of Anne, I was off to Nigel's place to play Mare Nostrum.

I was keen to try Greece, so while John was getting his fish and chips, Travis chose Rome, Andrew took Babylon and Nigel grabbed Egypt, leaving John with Carthage. I made more mistakes than last week. Initially by letting Rome convert one of my provinces. Later when I was military leader I intended to move last so I could leave my North African safely empty while I raided some Carthaginian caravans. But I forgot to give Egypt his turn and he took back the province.

Egypt got the first hero, then Rome and Carthage got a couple of heroes/wonders each threatening to win, prompting Babylon and Greece into a military strategy which merely prolonged the game. Greece in particular was too busy attacking to build up its own resources. Babylon played a more balanced strategy of attacking sometimes and developing other times.

Egypt finally got a third and fourth hero/wonder to win.

We made one mistake with the rules. When someone conquers a province they can only sack one caravan, city, temple or market.

I would be interested to see how the game would play with the "Advanced Setup" where players get to choose what they start with. They get 36 "build points" to spend on initial stuff. Three points for each: influence marker, city, caravan or military unit and 6 points for each temple or market. Buying a country's own hero is optional and costs 9 points. It is unclear from the rules whether players choose their setup in some turn order or if it is simultaneous.

Reading the expansion rules and the various variants it seems that Mare Nostrum is a flexible game that handles modifications well. Most of the modifications involve strengthening Greece. For instance the expansion gives Greece a temple, a trireme and an extra caravan (but also gives other countries extra stuff). A few strengthen Carthage and weaken Rome (my suggestion for that is to swap their heroes). The expansion gives reduces Julius Caesar to cheap legions only. Some people play without Helen.

Mare Nostrum (16 October 2010)

With Anne away and wanting to play something a bit longer than is usually practical on Wednesday or Friday nights I organised a group of fellow travelers to start early on Saturday evening. By the time we sat down (just after 6pm) we hadn't made our mind up about what to play. Princes of the Renaissance was the top of my list (we had a good game of this four months ago). Travis brought Warrior Knights and Fury of Dracula while John brought A Game of Thrones and Mare Nostrum. It almost came down to a coin toss between Princes of the Renaissance and Mare Nostrum, but the argument in favour of Mare Nostrum swung the decision.

Mare Nostrum is Serge Laget's attempt to design a lighter version of Francis Tresham's Civilization.

It had been so long since any of us had played the game that we had to learn it again. John taught. Nigel was Rome, John was Greece, Travis was Babylon, Andrew was Egypt and I was Carthage. Initial everyone grabbed cities and resources within reach. Because Rome and Greece's special powers are that they get to build unit for two cards rather than three, whenever they had a couple of spare resources they build legions and triremes. Once the city and caravan tokens were used up, the first phase of the game was over and we were faced with the strategic decision of what next?

Rome took two legions along the Balkan coast towards Greece. Greece responded by building legions to protect his north western border. Meanwhile I took a risk and ignored the military build up in the north of the Mediterranean and build the first hero (Helen - whose defensive abilities somewhat made up for my lack of military units). After a stand-off Rome withdrew and Greece took his now unemployed legions to Asia Minor to tax the Babylonian province there - much to Travis's annoyance. Worried that my non-military strategy and two heroes would make me a target I built fortresses rather than get another hero/wonder. The Commerce Leadership swapped back and forth between Carthage and Rome.

By this time Egypt's tax revenue was beginning to kick in and Andrew build two wonders/heroes in a row. He also moved two legions towards my undefended eastern province and I responded by building four legions and invaded. Worried that Egypt was close to winning, Greece followed with a seaborne invasion of Egypt's heartland, leaving Egypt very weak and making Greece the Political Leader and Rome the Military Leader. By forcing Greece to trade 6 cards he had to offer 3 of his 12 Tax. The rest of us cooperated to ensure he didn't get enough Tax or Resources to build the Pyramids.

I got another hero (Ulysses) while Babylon took the Commerce Leadership from Carthage. On the final turn Babylon had a big hand of cards. Carthage only had 6 different goods and if he had chosen to trade 0-2 Carthage couldn't have gotten their fourth hero. But he chose to trade 4 cards, while I kept all my Gold cards in hand (I thought I had the monopoly on Gold and Fruit) to prevent anyone getting enough resource for the Pyramids. I managed to get Olive Oil, Livestock and Wine to build the fourth hero for Carthage.

Thanks to Carl for lending us his game.

Now we need to organise a rematch (and another game of Princes of the Renaissance).

Friday 8 October

Drakon
While we waited to see if anyone else would show up John pulled out Drakon as a filler. This is a game we went mad on in March 2008 (11 plays in one month). There were two good areas but Anne made the best of it and I ended up trapped in an empty maze of twisty little passages, all alike.

Anne  10
John B 6
Ian    2

On the Underground
We were all pretty close for most of the game with Anne jumping ahead a couple of times (including with her 6 point loop). Then I pulled ahead when I managed to get my grey line to join two pairs of symbols and then started to score a bunch of red end points.

Ian    59
John B 49
Anne   47

Patrician
We play this simple game so infrequently that I had to teach it again. This is a short Michael Schacht board game about building the majority of floors in towers. You start with a pile of stackable tower pieces and a hand of three cards. Each turn you play a card, place a tower piece (or two) and pick up a card. The card indicates which city you are to build in, whether you are building one tower piece or two, a special action or a portrait. Each city has two building spaces and two victory point tokens and a face up card which will be the one you refill your hand with. Once a the number of tower pieces in a city equals the number on the larger victory point token that city scores and the tokens are given to the players with the majority control of each tower. The game ends when the last city is scored (which is also when the cards run out). There are also 6 VP for each set of 3 matching portraits on the cards you've played.

Ian    62
John B 48
Anne   31

Thinking about the game afterwards I was struck by some similarities and contrasts with China (or Web of Power / Kardinal und König). Both games are primarily about scoring majorities. Patrician is a bit shorter. In both games you have a hand of three cards. Each turn you play a card (or cards), put one or two pieces on the board in a place indicated by the card(s) and then pickup card(s). When an area is filled it is scored. There is also end game scoring in both games. In China everyone in a region scores. In Patrician only the person with the majority control of a tower scores - which probably leads to bigger swings in the scores. In China there are two types of pieces (houses and emissaries) and three types of scoring and all the cards of a particular colour are the same which means the cards are means to an end. Whereas in Patrician the cards tell you how many pieces you play, may give you a special action or a portrait to score with, so the cards are more important. Also each card you play in Patrician determines which card you pick up, so you are often thinking through a chain of possible moves. In China the first player to play in a region can only play one house, which often discourages players from starting new regions. Whereas in Patrician ties are broken by player nearest the top of the tower so player often want to hold back so that they can play the final pieces in a city.

Hornochsen!
With three players only 45 out of 98 cards are in play which makes for big surprises. Unusually this is a game where more players makes the game less random. The first game was low scoring.

Ian   6
Anne  2
John -8

In game two there were plenty of nice piles and a few stinkers. I ended up with fewer cards than the others which is usually bad news as it gives you fewer choices, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

John 26
Anne 14
Ian  10

Change of Location (6 October 2010)

Peter and family were spending the week in Auckland so I hosted his Wednesday games. Anne was out at a dinner/seminar, while Andrew and Anna wanted one last games fix with us before heading off to Brisbane.

Tichu
John agreed to play a couple of hands as a filler while we waited for others to show up. As seems usual nobody called Tichu on the first hand (I had passed Anna the Dragon while she passed me an Ace, Andrew and John swapped Kings). But it seems that Anna and I had better hands than our opponents and she went out first and I followed for a 1-2. In the second hand Anna called Tichu but the our opponents managed to prevent me going out second. So the final score was 360 to 40.

Metropolys
With a big pile of games on the table it took the six of us a while to make up our minds. Andrew, John and Nigel decided on Metropolys while the rest of us were still dithering.

Andrew played very well, at one point I looked over and he had 5 Ladies (15 points) and was winning in two regions.

Andrew H 39
Nigel    27
John B   21

Nexus Ops
I wasn't sure that Nexus Ops was Anna's cup of tea but she was enthusiastic to learn. Jarratt found lots of Rock Strider including two adjacent to the Monolith so he jumped up and started collecting Energize cards. I got a 3 point Special Mission to win a battle on the Monolith with a Dragon and then an Energize card to jump a Dragon to anywhere. So I bought a Dragon and jumped up with some Rock Strider support but threw badly and ended up leaving my Dragon to be finished off by Jarratt on his turn.

Anna's verdict was that Nexus Ops is a crazy game.

Jarratt 12
Anna     6
Ian      4

No Thanks!
While they waited us to finish off Nexus Ops the others played No Thanks!. Andrew won again, while Nigel made a record bad score.

Andrew H 35
John B   77
Nigel   129

Vegas Showdown
Jarratt went mad on Slots and probably bought at least half of them. Nigel had the early lead on the score track, but he and I were stuck on incomes of 6 and 5 for a long time. I was tempted first by the Night Club and then by the Theater before I had a Fancy Lounge or Lounge (so I had them sitting off board for a long time). If I had managed to get everything down I would have been very competitive score wise. It ended badly as Jarratt made sure I didn't get a Fancy Lounge.

John B  52
Jarratt 51
Ian     39
Nigel   25