Saturday 19 February 2011

We started the afternoon with Andrew R, Andrew H, Anna, Carl, Jarratt, Anne and I. On one table Andrew R, Anna and Anne make some films in Traumfabrik. Anna won with over 100 points and Andrew lost. He says that there are several rule difference between Traumfabrik and Hollywood Blockbuster. In particular he says the rule in Hollywood Blockbuster for choosing tiles at the party involves counting the number of stars on actor and guest start tiles, also he says that Hollywood Blockbuster has different end game awards. This interested me but I couldn't find any references to this on BGG.

Meanwhile on the other table Carl and I took on Jarratt and Andrew H at Tichu. As is often the case we started cautiously without a Tichu call on the first hand (and A&J slapped us 80-20). After that Carl got his confidence back and called Tichu the next two hands, with a 50% success rate that put us back in front. The lead swapped back and forth and either side could have won. The game climaxed with a pair of Tichu 1-2s in the last two hands.

Hnd C & I A & J
1.    20    80  
2.   235    65  Carl's Tichu
3.   185   115  Carl failed to make Tichu
4.   220   180 
5.   220   480  Andrew's Tichu and 1-2
6.   280   520
7.   425   575  Carl's Tichu
8.   425   475  Carl and Jarratt failed Tichu but we scores all the points
9.   565   435  Carl's Tichu and Andrew failed
10.  570   530
11.  760   540  Carl's Tichu
12.  760   840  Jarratt's Tichu and 1-2
13. 1060   840  Carl's Tichu and 1-2

Overall Carl called Tichu 7 times in 13 hands and only failed twice. On the other hand I was way too cautious to call Tichu; while Andrew and Jarratt were more balanced calling twice each. The joke of the game was that whenever Carl called Tichu it meant that I had the stronger hand, this turned out to save our bacon at least once!

While we continued to play Tichu the others played a hand of Coloretto which Andrew Rae won before he hurried back to his family. Andrew P took his place and won a couple of games of Attika against Anna and Anne, with shrine to shrine victories.

Anna and Anne who had been jealous of our game of Tichu challenged Andrew and Jarratt to a game. The boys started off with a rush with 3 successful Tichus. After a couple of quite hands both Anna and Andrew called Tichu and both failed. Finally Anna and Anne started their come back.

Hnd A & J A & A
1.   165    35  Jarratt's Tichu  
2.   360    40  Jarratt's Tichu
3.   505    95  Andrew's Tichu
4.   575   125
5.   655   145
6.   600   100  Andrew & Anna both failed Tichu
7.   600   400  Anna's Tichu and 1-2

The game was abandoned because Jarratt had to go and cook dinner, amid protests from the others!

On the dining table I tried to teach Havoc to Jim, Margot and Carl. Unfortunately this turned out to be one of my less successful teaching efforts and Carl in particular ended up with the wrong idea of how to play a battle. I obviously need to brush up on my teaching technique. Andrew P beat me on the tie-break.

Andrew P  30
Ian       30
Margot    26
Jim       22
Carl       9

After Jarratt left, Anna and Andrew H taught Anne Glory to Rome. Anne played a military strategy but was weak in other areas.

During the dinner break Jim, Andrew H, Carl and I learnt my new game of The Bottle Imp and played one hand. I'd now like to try a full game of this odd trick taking game.

After dinner Andrew and Anna taught Carl Glory to Rome. But I was busy teaching Jim and Margo On the Underground. Which was draw between Jim and Anne.

Jim    48
Anne   48
Ian    41
Margot 38

By 10 pm everyone had gone home and after we tidied up Anne and I played a final game. Jaipur is our current two player game of choice. I won 2 out of 3 rounds.

Ian  54 57 86
Anne 89 49 72

Overall it was a pretty successful day even though I only played in 4 of the 11 games.

First Impressions of London (8 January 2011)

Recently I spent a day gaming at Peter N’s place. While we were deciding what to play I noticed Eric’s copy of London. Being a fan of Martin Wallace I was keen to play, but for most of the day there were 6 of us. In the evening two more players arrived and Eric, Peter, Andrew and I got to play London.

London is a development/economic game covering the development of London from the Great Fire of 1666 to the 20th Century. The board shows a map of London divided into boroughs. The players build buildings and businesses in London but unlike his earlier games these do not get built on the map. The map is used to indicate the "ownership" of boroughs and the development of the Underground. Most of the game play centres around the cards rather than the board. The deck of 110 cards is divided into three parts A, B, C which represent the division of 400 years of history into 3 chucks. Each part of the deck is shuffled separately and stacked. Like Brass, the deck controls the length of the game. The end game phase starts once the draw deck is empty.

When drawing cards one can take cards from both the draw deck and from a number of face up cards (which are arranged in two rows). Most games that use this mechanism (e.g. Liberté, Ticket to Ride or Union Pacific) have a fixed number of face up cards which are refilled from the face down deck. London takes a fresh approach. The face up cards come from player’s hands. These are cards that are spent to play or activate other cards or cards discarded when over the hand limit of 9. Cards added to the display are added to the top row if possible. If there are no spare spaces in either row the top row is discarded and the bottom row becomes the new top row.

The cards are complicated, most of them are unique and they all have pictures. They are best compared with those in card driven games like Twilight Struggle. They come in 4 colours (brown - economic, blue - science and culture, pink - political and grey - paupers). Most of them represent buildings or businesses. The implicit base cost to play a card is to "spend" another card of the same colour (the spent card ends up in the face up display for players to pickup if they wish). Some cards have additional costs (usually cash). Most of the cards are played in front of the player. Most cards are worth a number of points at the end of the game but some have additional advantages that are available as long as the card is face up and not over-built. At the bottom of these cards is a section that relates to "activating" the card. Activating a card often has a cost (a card or money). It gives a benefit (and possibly a penalty) and in most cases means the card is turned face down. Though some cards remain face up for multiple activations. The two part process of building a building and later activating it seems to be a development of the building and flipping of buildings in Brass.

A turn consists of drawing a card (from display or draw deck), then do an action and finally discard down to 9 cards (discards go to display). The action is one of four choices:

• Play cards
• Run city
• Buy land
• Draw 3 more cards

Note that it is not possible to pass and this restriction can become important at the end of the game as players are penalised for having cards in their hand.

As in other Card Driven Games, cards in hand represent the opportunities that you have. Playing/building a card cost you another card/opportunity of the same type/colour. Interestingly you are penalised at various points in the game for having cards in hand (hogging your opportunities?).

The Play Cards action is mostly about building one or more cards/things. Though there are a few cards (Wren and the 3 Refugee cards which are discarded rather than built).

The Run City action is when you get to activate one or more of your face-up cards. In most cases this will result in the card being turned down. It is just about the only way to get more money and possibly reduce poverty. Poverty Points are a similar concept to the Loss Points in Automobile. Everyone starts the game with 5 and at the end of the game they gain one for each card left in their hand. Every time a player chooses the Run City action they count the number of cards in hand, add the number of stacks of cards they have built and subtract the number of boroughs they have bought. If this is a negative number (highly unlikely) they reduce the number of Poverty Points (black cubes) they have otherwise they increase it by this number. A number of the buildings have penalties or benefits which also change the number of Poverty Points you have. In the final scoring the player with the fewest Poverty Points discards them all, the other players discard the same number and then use a chart on the board to determine what the remaining Poverty Points will cost them in VP.

The Poverty Point system provides an incentive to over build buildings rather than create more stacks. It also provides an incentive against choosing the "Run City" action too often.

The Buy Land action allows the player to buy a borough. This cost money, but you immediately draw a number of cards and will score victory points at the end of the game. It will also reduce the Poverty gained by one each time you "Run City". There are also extra points available when the Underground cards come into play.

Of course there are loans in the game. They can be taken at any time but only paid back at the end of the game. The interest rate is 50% and there is a steep VP penalty if you can't pay.

As is common in Martin Wallace games it wasn't clear what the strategy should be at the beginning of the game. Buying land could give you some useful cards but that advantage is minimized as you near/reach the hand limit. Run City didn't seem useful until you had a number of buildings built. But how many buildings should you built side by side (rather than on top of each other) given the Poverty Point penalty of having lots of building stacks?

Hand management plays a big part in London. A big hand of cards gives you plenty of choices but comes at a cost. It is also important to develop your "engine" so that you have a source of cash, points, cards and a way of avoiding too many poverty points. Though as building turn over or get built over your "engine" is very dynamic.

There is the possibility from time to time of choosing when to cause the top line of the display to be discarded, reducing the number of face up cards for players to your left to choose from. Similarly when you add cards to the display you might consider how useful they might be to your fellow players (though this may have little impact if that card is the only spare one of its colour in your hand).

You might consider the other players when choosing which borough to buy, and there are also a few cards that allow targeted actions against other players. But overall I suspect the two main influences on the other players are keeping your Poverty Points much lower than them and choosing when to end the game by using up the draw deck.

Like many cards games with lots of different cards, knowledge of the deck will give a seasoned player an advantage over a newbie.

It was the first time for all of us and due to over hasty rule reading we played a few things wrong. Most importantly we misunderstood the Wren and Refugee cards. We understood that they weren't buildings so we didn’t play them in front of us like the other building cards, we "played" them to the display (where Wren in particular got eagerly picked up by the next player) rather than "playing" them to the discard pile. So Wren got played about 8 times in the game rather than just once! There as a tendency for eager players to want to play/build a card and then immediately activate it in the same turn!

Overall I think London was an interesting Martin Wallace economic/development game with a novel card drafting mechanic, and elements of Brass like two phase builds and the loss/poverty points from Automobile. I'm a little worried by the lack of interaction between players (though some people may see that as an advantage!). I'd play it again but I am not yet convinced that I need to buy it.

Games played in 2010

Total played 362 games (about 131 distinct games - all the prototypes count as one and expansions probably count separately). Just short of my aim of 365. Going to Peter's Wednesday night games and hosting my own games on Friday nights really drove the total up this year.

Most played game Frank's Zoo (18), which has become a favourite Friday night opener, beats Tichu (13) and my other dimes.

Five and Dimes Frank's Zoo (18), Tichu (13), Beowulf: The Legend (12), 10 Days in Europe (12), Metropolys (11), On the Underground (11), Masters Gallery (10).
Ave Caesar (8), Hornochsen (8), Vegas Showdown (8), Expedition (7), Jaipur (7), No Thanks! (6), Age of Industry (5), Aton (5), Buccaneer (5), In the Year of the Dragon (5), Rheinländer (5), Samarkand: Routes to Riches (5), Sylla (5), TransEuropa (5), Walk the Dogs (5), Diamant (5).

Favourite Game At the beginning of the year I really enjoyed Sylla which I liken to a more interactive In the Year of the Dragon. Overall Frank's Zoo was my favourite lighter game and Tichu as a more serious game.

Gaming Moment According to the Friendless Stats Server my Birthday Games was the best day of gaming in 2010. Wellycon and its mini-con were also good days. It was also good to play so many unpublished prototypes (8).

Gamer of the year Anna and Andrew for being the most consistent attendees on Friday nights and toughest Tichu opponents, and Anne as the winner of far too many 2 player games and my Tichu partner.

Looking forward to this year more games.... and may be 400 plays.

Friday 18 December 2010

Frank's Zoo
As has become traditional we started a game of Frank's Zoo while we waited for Nigel.

We deliberately split Anna and Andrew and made them sit opposite each other. Anne was on form, jumping out to a lead of 8 by the second round. A lead which she never looked like loosing. While Nigel, as he often does when he arrives late and joins in, did very well scoring 8 a couple of times to come second. Playing to Anne's left didn't do me much good.

Andrew P 2  6 11 13 18 18
Anna     4  6  8 14 13 14
Anne     6 14 18 23 25 28
Ian     -1  0  3  6  9 13
Andrew H 5  4  3  8 17 22
Nigel    -  4 12 13 15 23

Balderdash
Anne convinced everyone else to learn and play Balderdash. Anna was initially keen to play, but on the first turn she discovered just how tricky it is to come up with a convincing definition and changed her mind! Andrew H was always first to finish his definition while Andrew P had a fixation for Morocco. For some reason Anna liked my definitions better than the correct ones. Nigel was the only person to write down the correct definition for a work. Anne led and I chased, but I burst passed her on the last turn.

This was the first time we played a party game on a Friday night. Experience counted as far as scoring was concerned.

Ian      30
Anne     27
Andrew H 15
Nigel    12
Anna      9
Andrew P  5

Ra
Anne had forgotten much of this game. But with plenty of advice from me and Andrew, she thrashed us. The tiles may not have been mixed well. The first epoch went on and on, while the third finished very quickly with a bunch of Sun tiles coming out together.

The uncertainty of tile drawing, the fixed bids and the penalties built into the scoring system and the disaster tiles make Ra one of the tensest auction games.

Anne     68
Ian      41
Andrew P 21

Master's Gallery
Andrew is quite keen on this auctionless version of Modern Art. It turned out to be quite a close game compared with previous ones.

Anne     16 34 73 139
Andrew P 18 39 80 133
Ian      14 31 73 130

Glory to Rome
At the other end of the table Nigel, Andrew H and Anna played Glory to Rome. I was too busy with Ra and Master's Gallery to take notice of what was happening, though I think I heard that Nigel didn't embezzle enough building materials. I suspect Andrew won.

This was the last Friday night games for 2010.

Friday 3 December (House of Cards)

Frank's Zoo
While we waited for Nigel we started a game of Frank's Zoo. Anna sat on Andrew's left rather than on his right - a fact which the rest of us claimed contributed to her unusually poor score (and to Andrew's). Nigel arrived and joined in the the second hand. Everyone except Anna made 7 or 8 at some point in the game. But Nigel and I were the most consistent.

Andrew H  2  3  4 12 11 14
Anna      1  0  5  3  8  9
Andrew P  0  7 10 14 17 16
Ian       8 12 15 17 22 27
Nigel     -  3  7  9 12 20

Masters' Gallery
In my hasty recap of the rules (mostly for Nigel's benefit) I forgot the rule about adding cards from your hand during the scoring phase. Andrew P remembered the missing rule just after the first scoring, but this wasn't much of an issue as there is little benefit in taking advantage of that rule early in the game. On average we scored 6 in the first round, 21 in the second, 22 in the third and 18 in the final round.

Andrew H  5 30 50 63
Anna      7 34 56 66
Andrew P  3 20 42 59
Ian       7 19 53 74
Nigel     9 32 45 75

Coloretto
Next we played a blast from the past, where Nigel's greedy strategy paid off. While my "strategy" of collecting 6 or 7 colours and at least two in most of them did not.

Andrew H  19 42 69 91
Anna      28 46 67 85
Andrew P  23 47 70 93
Ian       23 48 57 81
Nigel     25 54 77 97

Hornochsen!
Anne came home so we looked for a six player game. This was Andrew Par's first game and I gave him the briefest of rules explanations, so don't take his score too seriously.

Andrew H    3
Anna       28
Anne       36
Andrew P  -16
Ian        44
Nigel       5

We played again and there was more red on the table this time.

Andrew H   64
Anna       -6
Anne        6
Andrew P    0
Ian        -8
Nigel      10

Overall it was a good evening for Nigel with two wins and two seconds. It was entirely accidental that we only played card games.

Giganten revisited

(Played: 20 November at home)
Gigenten is a game with nice bits and a reputation (in Peter's group) of being too long. I suspect that the cuprit for this reputation is that most times we've played it we have misunderstood one of the rules. I was keen to play it with the correct rules and knowing that this was highly unlikely to happen at Peter's place due to its reputation I borrowed it from Peter.

The game is about drilling for oil in Texas and more importantly selling the oil for a decent profit. Most of the board is the oil field, a grid of mostly dull brown squares, with the occasional green hill or grey mountain. Scattered around the desert are some face down tiles with 1, 2 or 3 drilling rigs on the back. Along one side of the board are some parallel train tracks (one per player and one for the "black train"). At one end of the board there are oil tanks for three oil companies each with their own price chart. The oil prices vary randomly and by player actions.

Drilling for oil is a simple process of driving a cute little truck around the board and turning over tile, paying for a drilling rig and finding out from the number on the hidden side of the tile how much oil you will be getting. Transporting the oil to the tanks is also trivial, whereas selling the oil depends on winning auctions. Each turn only one player will get to sell oil to each oil company. The players bid against each other using oil certificates, the highest bidder gets to sell oil at that companies current oil price and if anyone else has more than a couple of barrels of oil they must sell the excess at the rock bottom price of $1000 per barrel.

There are elements of managing both your money and your oil production (there is no point in paying to drill for oil, possibly paying to transport it if you are then forced to sell it at below cost price).

Each turn there are a number of cards to choose from which determine your actions for the turn (except selling which is determined by the aforementioned auctions). There is one red card plus a number of brown cards equal to the number of players. The rule we have gotten wrong in the past is that the red card determines how far the black train moves regardless of whether someone chooses the red card or not. Previously we have only moved the black train if some chose the red card. Given that the game ends when the black train reaches the end of the track, not moving it on some turns stretches the game beyond its design length.

Perhaps with three players we were playing too conservatively but there was no competition for drill sites, no trouble shipping oil back on ones own train and little competition to sell oil (at least in the first half of the game). This made things seem too easy. Perhaps we were playing too nicely and were not ruthless enough to choose the action to send other peoples trains backwards as often as we should have. Compared with previous plays (which were with four players) the game was too tame with three players.

There are plenty of games around building efficient production mechanisms, but very few around the competition to sell things (Automobile and Planet Steam are the other games that springs to mind on this subject - and Gigenten is short and simpler than either).

First Impressions of Gravediggers, Jaipur, Age of Steam Expansion: Beer & Pretzels and Endeavor (European Powers)

Some thoughts and opinions about some more games I played for the first time in November.

Gravediggers
(Played: 14 & 17 November at home and at Peter's place)
When Anne bought this game I had never heard of it and so I surprised when I looked it up on BGG to see it on my wishlist! It turns out to be a renaming and re-theming of Banküberfall from bank fraud to grave robbing. I had read about the earlier version a few years ago and thought that sounds like fun.

This is a very simple game of memory, bidding, guessing, bluff and greed. Even simpler than High Society. There is a deck of cards, which is mostly money but also characters and multipliers. Everyone starts with a hand of 5 cards and there are 5 graveyards to rob, each starts with a face down card. People add cards to the graveyards during the game and at various points in the game the graveyards are robbed.

Robbing a graveyard consists of everyone secretly bidding an amout of money. The cards are turned up and if any of the cards are people, they take effect in a predetermined order. This sometimes means the grave robbers go home empty handed. But if they are lucky there is some money. Then starting with the players who bid the least, the players are payed out on an all or nothing basis. Be too greedy and you might end up with nothing.

It takes about 2 minutes to learn and about 20 minutes to play. This is fortunate because your action each turn is dictated by turning over the top tile of a small stack of tiles, which removes a lot of decision making. And sometimes when you do have a decision it is not a particularly meaningful one. It pays to regard this as a filler. And maybe replace the Graverdigger card with a pawn or meeple.

Jaipur
(Played: 20 November at home)
Jaipur was my impulse buy, designed by Sébastien Pauchon (who also designed Metropolys, Yspahan and Jamaica). It is a two player card game.

Jaipur, like Yspahan, uses camels as a form of currency. It is a competition between two traders to be the best. The players don't trade directly with each other, but with the same market, which provides most of the tension in the game. Each turn a player either sells cards for points or buys cards. Players "buy" cards in one of three ways. Either they take all the camel cards that are face up in the market and add them to their pile of camel cards (the empty spaces in the market are refilled from the draw deck). Or they take one goods card into their hand from the market and it is replaced from the draw deck. Or they swap 2 or more cards with the market (the cards they take must be goods cards, they cards they put back can be a mixture of goods cards and camel cards). Because both players are buying from the same market any buy action provides opportunities for the opponent. Selling provides tension between speed and quantity. The victory point tokens for sales descend in value so early sales give you more points, but there are also bonus points for selling 3, 4 or 5 goods of a type at once encouraging players to put off selling.

The game is played for the best of three hands (an idea that could be used in Lost Cities as well). Anne won the first game two-nil, winning 78-72 and 65-50. By the time she won the first hand of our second game 78-69, I was considering how much I could make by selling this stupid game on TradeMe. But then I won the next hand 84-74 and it was all on for the final hand.

From a strategy point of view one has to decide which types of goods to concentrate on, whether to go for quick points or to save up and collect sets of 3 or more. These decisions will probably be influenced by what you see your opponents doing. Tactically it is important to watch the hand limit - six is so much more flexible than seven.

Age of Steam: Beer and Pretzels
(Play tested: 21 November at home)
When I read about Ted Alspach's "Beer and Pretzels" variant for Age of Steam I was intrigued. Most game variants change or add rules to games. This one mostly takes rules away. By taking away the share track, income track, expenses and income reduction and by giving money directly for moving goods do you still have a viable game?

Anne and I ran 4 player play-test playing 2 players each, rather than use Ted's official board we used the standard "Rust Belt" Age of Steam board.

On the "Rust Belt" board it becomes too easy to make money and there is not enough money in Age of Steam to pay everyone. Ted's official Beer & Pretzels board includes several mountain ranges and a number of rivers. Many of the cities are quite a long way apart. Overall it looks like a more expensive map to build on than "Rust Belt". Anne also mentioned that perhaps we didn't compete enough with each other in the auctions.

My conclusion is: yes this is a viable (and simpler) game. Though you need a more expensive board to consume excess cash. Playing this on the “Rust Belt” board at $5 per cube per link is too easy. It may be worth considering shortening the game by a turn or two.

Endeavor (European Powers)
(Play tested: 24 November at Peter's)
Jarratt brought along an Endeavor play test board which I have called "European Powers" for want of a better name.

It is a substantial redesign of the board plus some extra rules, but the cards, tokens, buildings and other pieces are the same as the original game.

Europe is represented by five main colonizing powers (Portugal, Spain, France, England and the Netherlands). Each Power has a couple of city spaces. Before the game starts each player places a piece in one of these Power cities that no-one else has chosen. Each Power has special advantages. France has defensive advantages (attacking French tokens in Europe costs an extra piece). The Netherlands gets access to special shipping spots that function more like cities. There are no normal shipping routes for the Americas. Each of the 3 America card decks are open to specific European Powers.

The shipping routes to Africa, India etc cross region boundaries with pieces counting for influence depending on which side of the boundary they are (which makes the building that allows a joint shipping and colonizing action to be more useful). Some places have multiple routes and some routes only become available once other regions have opened up. The Slave deck has been moved to Africa.

The changes add a bit more complexity to Endeavor, and make it seem less abstract and more historic.

I tried to get as many cities as possible. Though Jarratt managed to almost eliminate me from Europe. I enjoyed it more than previous plays of the standard game.

First Impressions of Wizard's Quest, Glory to Rome and The Speicherstadt (November 2010)

This is something slightly different to my normal session reports. It is more of summary of thoughts and opinions about some of the games I've played for the first time in November.

Wizard's Quest
(Played: Wednesday 3 November at Peter's place)
Wizard's Quest is a 1979 Avalon Hill game that has been sitting on Peter's shelf for years. He has mentioned it once or twice as a simple dice-battler, but hasn't made any serious effort to get it played. Lately I have been thinking about "dice-battlers" and I found a re-write of the Avalon Hill rules into plain English. So I got it on the table and got Peter and Nigel to play it with me.

Wizard's Quest turns out to be a step sideways from the usual Risk inspired conquer-the-world dice battler games. Firstly each player is aiming to be the first to recover their three treasures which the opposing players have put in awkward places on the board. Secondly there are orcs and a dragon which are hostile to everyone (and orcs seem to breed faster than humans!). Thirdly even though armies vary in size and battles can last several rounds of dice throwing, in each round each player only throws one die. Each time they throw the die they calculate what "die-range" to use. If you throw a number in the range (1..N) you kill that many enemy units. Throw a number that is too big and you kill no-one - unless both players throw too high and then they both loose one unit (this final part was a rule we overlooked). Basically N is the number of soldiers or orcs in the army if there less than 4 otherwise N is 4 (though there are modifiers for terrain etc). What may not be immediately obvious is that an army of 2 is about three times as powerful as an army of 1, and an army of 3 is about six times as powerful as an army of 1.

Each round of the game starts with the non-player forces (the orcs, the dragon and the wizard). These act randomly. This is assisted by having the board divided into 6 numbered regions and each region divided into 6 numbered spaces. So two die rolls will identify any space on the board (well not quite as there are 8 castles in addition to the 36 numbered spaces). Orcs fill up empty spaces and castles and breed and then go on the rampage once they reach their maximum army size of 4. The dragon flies around the board eating orcs and humans though once he has eaten humans he stops. The wizard causes peace (which is a mixed blessing) in the region he visits and has a deck of card which are mostly helpful.

The orcs tended to frenzy in my direction, while Peter and Nigel got their first two treasures quite easily (Peter carved his way through my main force to get to one of them). Somehow I managed to get to my second treasure before Nigel got to his third to win the game in about 90 minutes if I remember right. As I eluded to earlier we overlooked one rule.

There are huge amounts of luck due to the non-player forces and the cards. The orcs and dragon can set you back so much that it can take 2 or 3 turns to recover. Hence the game could drag on for a long time if everyone suffered this fate. The quantity of luck can reduce the feeling of skill and reduce the opportunity for long term strategic planning. On the plus side despite the long sequence of actions in a round, the game flows quite smoothly and each battle is quick and simple.

Overall I'd class this as a refreshing, though more random and slightly silly alternative to Nexus Ops as a quick "dice-battler" when you don't have hours to spare on one of the longer games of this type.

Glory to Rome
(Played: Friday 5 November at home)
Anna and Andrew brought back a new card game from Brisbane, which Anna tried to entice me to play by telling me that I "might not like it"! After a couple of weeks of this I called her bluff and we played it with Nigel one Friday night (while Sharon, Anne and John B played On the Underground at the other end of the table).

The theme of the game is that the players are dodgy property developers rebuilding Rome after the fire in 64AD. Points are gained by completing buildings and by hording building materials.

Like Race for the Galaxy and Puerto Rico where someone chooses an action and everyone gets to do it, the current start player decides the action that everyone will do. Unlike Race and Puerto Rico this is not done by choosing from a special set of cards or tiles but by playing a card from one's hand. The cards are multi purposed (they are building materials, buildings made of those materials and specific actions). The other players can either play a card with same action (colour) or pick up. Those that play can also do the action. This can be mitigated by getting clientele cards in your display. These can get you actions when they match the card the start player played regardless of whether you played a card or picked up. Completed buildings also give you extra powers.

Why play Glory to Rome when you can play Race for the Galaxy? Because it is more interactive than Race for the Galaxy, which has a multi-player solitaire feel to it. Not only can the start player (or "Leader" in Glory to Rome terminology) can choose actions that are more beneficial to themselves than their opponents. Some action affect other people directly and some actions affect the pool of cards to draw from. So if you like that style of game where you choose action for yourself and other players but you want more interaction than you get with Race for the Galaxy then try Glory to Rome.

The Speicherstadt
(Played: Wednesday 10 November at Peter's place)
In The Speicherstadt by Stefan Feld, you are an importer in the Speicherstadt (warehouse district) in Hamburg, buying ship-lots of goods to try and fulfill specific contracts for victory points. You can also sell, trade, save goods and also firemen to protect your warehouses. Most of this is done by acquiring cards. Each round a number of cards are available and the players bid for the cards. Nothing unusual as Euro games go.

But the point of difference with The Speicherstadt (apart from its name) is the bidding mechanism. This is an interesting (and often frustrating) hybrid of "worker placement" and auction. Each player has 3 meeples and over 3 rounds place these above the cards they wish to bid on. The first meeple placed above a card gives its owner first "dibs" on the card, the second and subsequent meeples give their owners second and third "dibs" etc. After all the meeples are placed then the cards are evaluated left to right. The player owning the first meeple above a card decides whether to buy the card at a price equal to the total number of meeples above it or remove his/her meeple (hence dropping the price) and letting the owner of the next meeple decide whether to buy or not.

People use the cards they buy to fullfill contracts etc. If someone ends up not buying a card they get a consolation coin. There isn't much money in the game. Knowledge of the distribution of cards is very important. There are only limited numbers of each type of card and the deck is built up of 4 sub-decks (called seasons) each with their own characteristic (e.g. ships are rare at the beginning of the game and common at the end)

There are elements here of "worker placement" as players claim dibs on cards, bidding the price up as players stack their meeples above a popular card and dutch auction as players remove their meeples dropping the price for remaining players. This bidding mechanic is both clever and frustrating. Being first player gives you full choice of "first dibs" spots but little control over prices. Being last give you the opposite situation.

This game seems to be a straight forward and slightly boring do stuff to get points game driven by a very clever bidding mechanic. I would like to see this bidding mechanism used in an otherwise more interesting game. If you like trading games there are the nastier games like Before The Wind and Die Händler, or more negotiation oriented games like Settlers of Catan and Bohnanza.

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

Friday 24 September 2010

TransAmerica
The way to make people show up is to start a game. With this aim in mind I put TransAmerica on the table, and before I could start explaining the rules John and Nigel arrived. TransAmerica is a quick, light game with a good dose of luck, but also a game of judgement where you want to cooperate with others in ways that benefit you slightly more than them.

The game ended when I made a very bad choice of start position assuming wrongly that other people would be as interested in the north east as I was and ignoring the cardinal rule of starting near the centre of the board. The newbies came first and second.

Jim   10
Margo  9
Nigel  7
Anne   4
John B 4
Ian    0

Power Grid
After TransAmerica we were looking for a 6 player game that would take no more than two and half hours. For some reason we not only thought that 6-player Power Grid would be quicker than Age of Steam, but we also thought it would take two and half hours! (Our last game of Power Grid took 3 hours with 5 players)

We played the German board, but we forgot to use only 5 regions, so there was plenty of room especially for Margo and myself. She had the cheap north while I had the more expensive south. Jim, Nigel and John shared the centre with Nigel in the cheapest area (which acted like a magnet for the others).

I got a lucky break and got the #35 power station (1 oil powers 5 cities) as my second station, which allowed me to ignore the power station market for the next few turns. Nigel kept the pressure on the price of coal by stock piling it every turn. Jim started off green but didn't keep up his green credentials. Anne started in the east and John did the big leap over Nigel to get to the North.

In the final turn we were all trying to calculate if we could get to 16 cities and power them, but only Margo had the necessary funds.

Margo 16
John  15 + $158
Nigel 15 + $145
Ian   15 + $145
Jim   14 + $167
Anne  14 + $151

Tichu (18 September 2010)

More Tichu with Anna and Andrew. Anna was disappointed with her Tichu calling on Friday night and was eager to redeem herself. After a promising start, we failed twice in a row, while Anna and Andrew surged ahead. When I called Grand Tichu I felt confident with the Dragon and four Aces, but not so confident by the time the third bomb was played against me! Anna and Andrew cruised to victory only going backwards once, and making three 1-2s.

Hnd IA+AM AJ+AH
1.   160    40  Ian's Tichu
2.   200   200  Andrew's Tichu
3.   270   130  Anna fails Tichu
4.   170   330  Ian fails, Anna and Andrew 1-2
5.   120   380  Ian fails
6.   120   580  Anna and Andrew make 1-2 again
7.   385   615  Ian makes Grand Tichu against 3 bombs
8.   385   915  Andrew makes Tichu and 1-2
9.   545   955  Anne makes Tichu
10.  520  1080  our only points were the Pheonix!

In game 2 we were almost even after the fourth hand, but we stagnated soon after that and were well beaten. I think Andrew and Anna are well practiced for their Brisbane trip.

Hnd IA+AM AJ+AH
1.    30   170  Anna's Tichu
2.   130   170  Anne fails Tichu but we made 1-2
3.   325   175  Ian's Tichu and lots of points
4.   245   255  Anne fails Tichu
5.   245   455  Andrew and Anna 1-2
6.   315   385  Anna fails Tichu
7.   410   490  Anna's Tichu but not many points
8.   445   555
9.   445   855  Anna's Tichu and 1-2
10.  415   985  Ian fails Tichu, Andrew makes Tichu
11.  415  1285  Andrew's Tichu and 1-2

Anne and I had discussed passing strategies earlier but such things are tricky to put into practice. We probably didn't swap Aces as often as Carl and I had the night before but apart from that I don't think the agreement helped us very much.

Friday 17 September 2010

Carl showed up first, followed by Anna and Andrew. We had decided to play Frank's Zoo when Jarratt rang the door bell, so we dealt him in while he came upstairs. We gave him the fastest rules explanation we could and got underway. But we only managed one round before John and Nigel showed up.

Frank's Zoo
Nigel joined Anna, Anne and Jarratt to restart Frank's Zoo. Jarratt wanted to stop playing after the first round, and perhaps he should have. Nasia joined in at the third hand and challenged Jarratt for third place. No surprises about who won.

Anna    2 8 15 24
Anne    4 7  8 11
Jarratt 7 7  9  8
Nasia   - -  5  7
Nigel   0 2  1  3

Clans
I've been keen to play this game again since I noticed the similarity between this and Metropolys. Both being essentially abstract games with secret missions. It's been a couple of years since I last played this, and longer since Carl, John or I last played it regularly. It was Andrew's first time. Unfortunately for Andrew and I, in the last third of the game we got into the rhythm of he and I being forced to set up situations where John and Carl could make villages (which they did). This was partially due to the seating order, which was: John, me, Carl, Andrew.

The early part of both games is the least important and the initial moves are not obvious. The mid-game starts as board position becomes interesting, and the end game is where choices become more limited and more critical. The obvious difference between the two is that in Metropolys the end game is about keeping the initiative whereas in Clans it is about giving away as few opportunities to your opponents (in particular the player following you) as possible.

John B   49
Carl     47
Andrew H 43
Ian      43

Andrew Rae arrived in time for the next set of game choosing. We had ten people and lots of indecision. We probably should have split into two five player groups as there are plenty of good five player games available. But we didn't.

Tichu
Carl hasn't played for awhile and was initially worried that we weren't strong enough for Anna and Andrew and the first two hands suggested he was right. But then Carl and Anna went head to head for the first of three times. The seventh hand turned up an interesting situation I called Tichu but Carl also had a good hand and ended up in a position to go out before me, controversially he choose to go out, leaving me to finish second for 200 minus 100 points. If he had not gone out, his final card would have been something like a 3 ruling out a 1-2. A Tichu would have given us more points but also have given Anna and Andrew points.

Grand Tichu calls are rare in our games, but on turn 9 Andrew called Grand Tichu and made it! But while Anna and Andrew were making a come back it was too late.

Hnd IA+Ql AJ+AH
1.    25    75
2.    85   215 Andrew's Tichu
3.   280   120 Carl makes Tichu, Anna fails
4.   345    55 Andrew fails
5.   450   150 Carl makes Tichu
6.   600   100 Carl makes Tichu, Anna fails
7.   700   100 I fail, but Carl and I make a 1-2
8.   875    25 I make Tichu, Anna fails
9.   800   300 I fail, while Andrew makes a Grand Tichu
10.  810   390
11.  830   570 Andrew makes Tichu
12. 1030   470 Carl makes Tichu, Anna fails

Nuns on the Run
Engrossed in Tichu I didn't pay much attention to what was happening at the other end of the room.

Nasia taught this deduction game that she had brought with her. It is like Scotland Yard in reverse, instead of one player being hunted by everyone else, one player hunts everyone else. She said it went OK, but none of the novices managed to get their secret wish and return to their cells. So Abbess Nasia won.

Pompeii
Rumors from Pompeii talk of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Amid destruction and disaster Nasia had fun, Andrew went crazy and found time went quickly.

Andrew only had cards for unplayed areas and John just kept on playing the same card after him for more relatives. John had 22 on the board to Andrew's 14. Driving Andrew crazy. Still it was to his advantage because he didn't have to worry about so many guys and got them all but three out. Andrew won, Nasia lost, with John in the middle.

Nexus Ops
Jarratt loves Nexus Ops but Nigel hasn't had enjoyed his previous experiences, while Anne hasn't played often. Jarratt did the rules refresher but forgot the easily forgotten rule that you can sell unwanted cards. Jarratt followed the standard strategy getting early control of the Monolith and fighting many battles. Nexus Ops is a game of winning battles but not wasting too many troops defending territory.

The experience didn't improve Nigel's attitude towards the game, but Anne wants to play again.

Jarratt 15
Anne     8
Nigel    6

California
John suggested we try this two player but neither of us checked the rules differences for two players until I had filled my house. Then Jarratt read that we should have finished much earlier, so we stopped at that point when I was one point ahead. If we had played by the real two player rules we wouldn't have scored as many present points (which would have hurt me more than John) and the game would have ended earlier with John probably winning.

Ian    36
John B 35