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Chief EGG Head
United States
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Had the opportunity to try Confusion: Espionage and Deception in the Cold War again. This was the second game for me and the first for Mary. I really wish the instruction booklet had more picture examples in it. For some reason I overthink the simple setup and the tend to get the movement confused which arrows mean forward for who etc. After a couple of practice moves we got the game going and were off to race for the top secret briefcase!
So the game is a bit like playing Stratego without knowing what your pieces are. You ask your opponent if one of your pawns can move to a certain square and they tell you if it is a legal move or not. Each player has a notebook to track the movements of their pawns thereby deducing which piece each pawn if likely to be. The little kicker is that each player has a double agent a "?" which of course your opponent can say moves whichever way they want or not. So Mary's double agent happened to be the center piece or the X and right off the bat she decides to move it. (The key here is to remember to mark down what you've told your opponent about the double agent!) So the X eventually moved forward and we each moved a few other pieces closer to the briefcase.
Then she wanted to capture one of my spies with her X. Ugh! I couldn't let that happen, so midstream I changed the direction her agent could move. I saw a puzzled look and I tried to keep a straight face. After a few adjustments she start moving X in a different way.
The center of the board was soon clogged up with agents. Eventually I had to uncover her double agent so I could take the briefcase and make a run to the homeland. I also discovered my own double agent but by that time I had the briefcase and was making a run for the corner. The last few spies were limited in their movement and unable to catch me. Afterwards Mary said she just figured I had made an error when I told her the double agent went a different direction  so chalk up a win to my error prone ways 
We played a number of lighter, older games this weekend as well. Trent, Rose, Mary and I played Arkadia which seems to be a bunch of different mechanism thrown hurriedly together but it works. A cross between tile placement and stock markets, Arkadia is really an interesting little game.
The key to success here is knowing when to turn a banner in for scoring and to get more workers to place on the board.
There were some pretty big scores early in the game, As Mary and Rose scored for Red and Green. I hung onto Black and bidded my time and was able to make a big score about 3/4 through the game. Overall this game still has some nice replayability left in it for me.
Eric, Mary and I played The Golden City by Michael Schacht and has some of the same feel as another of his games, and one of my Top 10, Web of Power. In Golden City you play cards to build networks that allow you to score and gain resources. Eric built a lead taking several goods cards and making it into the city. Mary almost caught up by focusing on Bonus cards. A reasonable game although I'd still much rather play Web of Power 
I had been dragging Fossil around to the last several game days wanting to get a game in so I could decide if I should keep the game or not. I like the paleontology theme and the tiles look nice. Unfortunately the game just didn't hold much excitement. We played a 6 player game with Trent, Cary, Julie, Mary, Rose and myself. Basically there are two stones you move along a grid and set collect the tiles of the distinct fossils. You score for the points on the tiles. If you have the most tiles of a fossil you get a bonus if anyone does not have part of the fossil. This one will go in the giveaway pile.
Cary, Anna, Julie, Mary and I then played Neue Heimat. This is a beautifully produced game with bright colored, chunky building blocks and nice red dome roofs-it almost looks like a kid's game but it's really an evil, evil game.
Neue Heimat is an auction game with a closed monetary system. The first block of each color building earns the winner control of that color. They will gain points, negative or positive, at the end of the game for each building that has that color block on the top. Rows of houses that are completed (all buildings haves roofs) at the end of the game score positive and uncompleted rows score negative. Players can bid on and win any color blocks and place them wherever they like. There are also some special building which extend or shorten rows and the mayor who doubles value whether it is positive or negative. Sometimes this is a game where the winner is the least negative!
The jockeying of position in rows and and the management of money in this game really drives the decision making to agonizing heights and makes it oh so challenging a game which deserves much more recognition in my book.
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lol, this will be hilarious!
