GCL Phoenix 56 - Favourite Phoenix Features
Dave Peters
Australia
Sydney
New South Wales
Powers:Coleridge:Milton: Faith...must be, if anything, a clear-eyed recognition of the patterns and tendencies, to be found in every piece of the world's fabric, which are the lineaments of God.
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You appear to have found the 56th installment of the Phoenix Geek Chat League. Welcome to our regular subscribers!
As usual, members are encouraged to add an item to the list. Our roster comprises:
chally
Eeeville
Dormammu
enzo622
Hawkeye77
indigopotter
JohnRayJr
Judoka
leroy43
Lowengrin
Mr_Nuts
ravenskana
rynelf
Taibi <-- next week's correspondent.
tjshields
topherr
yokiboy
particeps emeritus,
Bruzza
and some of our regular visitors (unaffiliated with any other GCL),
BennyD
EgorjLileli
WriteGamer
I was reflecting this week on games that my family and I like. And thought I might want to extend the questions out to you. Some of this is half- (quarter-?) baked, so I might make a hash of it and end with questions that don't make much sense, but I'll try my best...
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Dave Peters
Australia
Sydney
New South Wales
Powers:Coleridge:Milton: Faith...must be, if anything, a clear-eyed recognition of the patterns and tendencies, to be found in every piece of the world's fabric, which are the lineaments of God.
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My son #2 (currently) likes games where there's a piece that he can use as an avatar of himself: he likes being able to identify with an object in the game as him, and makes decisions about what "he" would prefer. So, for example, his recent acquisition of Mage Knight has worked pretty well: he can wander around the countryside exploring; recruiting minions; defeating dragons; protecting (or sacking, as the fit strikes) monasteries.
Daughter #1 likes games where the words we use to talk about the game are thematic: a game where one says "I'll cash in a red and two oranges to finish this contract" (Merkator) is inherently less appealing to her than one where one naturally says "I'll buy a cabbage and two pumpkins." (At the Gates of Loyang.) Somehow the cabbage-ness of the resource is interesting and important to her, and if it were just "that light green resource" it would work less well. And yeah; there's a continuum there: the use of "contract" in the first example makes the game superior to one where one would tend to say "Ok; I'll trade these three blacks for that card there."
Is there some thematic characteristic of a game that floats your boat? Something that amuses you; inspires you; motivates you toward a play?
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Dave Peters
Australia
Sydney
New South Wales
Powers:Coleridge:Milton: Faith...must be, if anything, a clear-eyed recognition of the patterns and tendencies, to be found in every piece of the world's fabric, which are the lineaments of God.
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My wife prefers games she's good at. She enjoys winning! Nothing wrong with that, at all. Well, except for the fact that I'm not very good at the games she's good at, so I can't even pretend to provide any significant opposition. It is occasionally fun to taunt visitors by adding to the list of game options "...or we could all lose at Boggle."
I can live with not winning. My likelihood of victory isn't even remotely one of the criteria for suggesting a game to play. Don't get me wrong: I'm not aiming for a loss. It's just not one of the axes that matter terribly to me.
How correlated, for you, is your likelihood of victory and your desire to play a game? What criteria do you apply when choosing games to play with your normal opponents?
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Dave Peters
Australia
Sydney
New South Wales
Powers:Coleridge:Milton: Faith...must be, if anything, a clear-eyed recognition of the patterns and tendencies, to be found in every piece of the world's fabric, which are the lineaments of God.
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Son #1 is much better than me at the skill of assigning value to a given action. (Yes, despite the fact that I'm a mathematician, he's better with numbers than I am. By a substantial margin. Numbers are his friends, and have been since he was a tiny boy.) I'm better at reading connectivity than he is. So we can find games at which he has a substantial advantage (Wabash Cannonball) and ones where I tend to do better (Kaivai). As well as games where our respective biases tend to cancel.
What (not theme-related) characteristics of a game interest you; improve your chances of victory; or, equally, turn you off?
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Dave Peters
Australia
Sydney
New South Wales
Powers:Coleridge:Milton: Faith...must be, if anything, a clear-eyed recognition of the patterns and tendencies, to be found in every piece of the world's fabric, which are the lineaments of God.
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Bonus Jon-inspired question: you're inviting some friends for dinner and games; what food do you prepare? What things would never make your menu?
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Dave Peters
Australia
Sydney
New South Wales
Powers:Coleridge:Milton: Faith...must be, if anything, a clear-eyed recognition of the patterns and tendencies, to be found in every piece of the world's fabric, which are the lineaments of God.
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Scorecard for the Week/Month/Year as of 28Jan2012:
11/26/26 plays of 8/18/18 total games, with 1/1/1 expansions employed.
Plays with 19/37/37 distinct opponents.
0/2/2 games acquired (plus 0/1/1 expansions.)
At BAP (with folk including BennyD, clearclaw, Morganza, and ravenskana):
1x _9_ South African Railroads - I really love this game; I'm not sure why. I'm certainly not very good at it. The decisions are hard; the mutations dramatic; and it doesn't last too long. My headliner for the week!
1x _7.7_ Locomotive Werks - It feels to me like an exercise in dancing on hot coals: stop in one place for too long, disaster; step on the wrong place, a different disaster. Here, the demand backdrop is random, but somehow it seems appropriate: it's a really cool design.
1x _8_ Outpost - I really enjoyed this one. Even managed a transitory early lead. But I underestimated the increase in accelleration of the economics about half way through, and fell off the pace. It's very cool; I'd be happy to play this several more times this year.
With a couple of the I've been Diced! guys:
1x _8_ Mage Knight: Board Game - I fell off the metaphorical path on this one early on. And ended up, several hours later, with about a third the score of the winning player. It was a cool learning experience, but not a very sucessful game on my part. I made several compounding blunders, and had to live with the results. I hope I'll do better next time!
1x _7_ Urban Sprawl - Only a partial play; we played out through the first few events in the City deck, just to see how the game worked. I find it absurdly entertaining: even if I can't predict the events, they're all vaguely thematically sensible - so I can't muster any significant outrage at their randomness.
With some older-than-my-kids youngsters from church:
2x _7_ Ca$h 'n Gun$ - One basic version; one with the police informant variant. Son #2 was the informant in the second game, and pulled out the win; somehow the elder youngsters spent too much time implicating one another. It's chaotic, inappropriate and silly; definitely not a good fit for all audiences.
2x _6.3_ Toc Toc Woodman - Watching some new folk attempt the game made me appreciate the skillz son #1 had demonstrated over the past couple weeks. But, equally, the new folk brought some really impressive new axe technique to the table: I learned more from the new players than they learned from me!
With the gentlemen of the No longer on Fridays gamers:
1x _6_ Survive: Escape from Atlantis! - We playe the new Stronghold edition: it played a lot like my old copy of Escape from Atlantis - though without the dolphins (which I understand are an option in the new version.) It's very random, but good for an occasional play.
Owned-and-unplayed: 23 - (No change this week, though JC and I considered playing Australian Railways - which would have removed one from the list.)
Outlook for the week: Sadly, BAP is monthly - so I'm not liable to get in that quality of game this week. The other groups are liable to recur, but who knows what we might play?
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Yoki Erdtman
Sweden
Södertälje
Handsome devil huh?
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Games Played: (Links to play details, with my ratings in color.)
_8_ Drum Roll
_9_ Tier auf Tier: Gipfelstürmer new!
_7_ Beppo der Bock
New Games:
I funded a Kickstarter project for a museum exhibit that will reward me the following games: Numbers League: Adventures in Addiplication, Infinity Level Expansion Deck, Dinosaurs Expansion, and Critters Expansion. They should go over very well with my 7-year old daughter Ella who loves superheroes and seem to be a math head anyway (she has recently mastered Roman numerals).
Representative Item:
Drum Roll is a great title, and with all the promotional cards it's trending to a 9-rating. It's just a shame that the publisher decided not to include all the promotional items in the box to start with, so that everyone can experience the full game. I'm thinking of writing a review for this game, but require some good in-game photos first.
Plans for the Week:
Another Thursday game night, and perhaps Ora et Labora is up in rotation next.
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Ben
United States
Washington
Dist of Columbia
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Ben
United States
Washington
Dist of Columbia
Games Played:
.6.5! Risk Legacy (x2)
.6.5! War of the Ring New!
_6_ Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization
_6_ Galaxy Trucker
Gaming Notes:
This has been a strange week of gaming for me, as I spent the vast majority of it playing computer versions of board games (or, in the case of Hero Academy, just straight-up computer games). After about a month of picking up iOS Tichu whenever I was bored, I've now largely switched to trying to improve my skills at Race for the Galaxyagainst the Keldon AI. I am getting better, but I'm not sure I enjoy the game significantly more than I did before. At best, I just pick a strategy and pursue it doggedly, hoping to draw the right cards before the clock runs out.
As you know, I do not record my computer games. So my play statistics look a little light.
War of the Ring (2nd Edition) is my representative game this week. I enjoyed the experience, but I did not find it an easy game to grasp on the first play. I was the Shadow Armies, and ultimately failed in my hunt for the ring because my initial strategy of forcing corruption was thwarted when my
opponent stalled in a Fellowship stronghold for five rounds or so. That forced me to go on the offensive with armies that I had not properly developed. And although I think of my spatial positioning was strong, I underestimated how essential elite units would be for continuing the sieges that are fundamental to scoring a military victory.
Our game played out in (what I was told was) a very nontraditional manner, because my opponent drew a card early that allowed him to activate several Northern armies. By the time he reached Mount Something (Doom?), he had all of his Dwarven units on the board and, in fact, had taken a Shadow stronghold in the north. This left me playing more defensively than I had anticipated (which of course is how he was able to stall for so long). I nearly lost on points three or four times this game.
Due to the manner in which our session played out, the game lasted approximately 4 1/2 hours. The good news is that it did not feel that long. Still, I would prefer to see the game move more briskly in the future. I enjoyed playing enough I would definitely be interested in playing this one again sometime soon, though. I'm not sure that it won me over, but it was well done.
From a design standpoint, I did find several of the rules fiddly. A few that I continued to forget: that you can only have 10 units in a hex; that you can move 2 armies with one die if neither attacks (you can only attack with one army using that one die); and that you get certain re-rolls and modifiers based on the particular characters that you ore your opponent has available. This last point would not be so difficult were it not for the fact that your opponents character cards are all the way across the massive board. Between forgetting the rules and my unfamiliarity with the event cards, at times it felt a little like I was playing a game with someone who was still making up the rules as we went (don't worry, Tom, I know that's not actually the case).
I would also have enjoyed the game more if I were more of a fan of the Lord of the Rings series. I have watched the movies and I loved The Hobbit (when I was about 11), but for the life of me I can't remember the difference between, say, Sauron and Sauramon. Nore could I tell you which region of the board is Isenguard, since, as far as I can tell, it is not actually labeled (unless you want to try to decipher those identical-looking triangular symbols). This is the first game I've played where I had a strong desire to paint the miniatures, if only to aid in play. Another member of our game group apparently commented that he would have preferred the game with a more generic fantasy theme. Although I do not agree with his assessment, I do think that the graphic designers should have been more sensitive to the playability issues that arise when one or more players aren't complete Tolkien-files.
Mark's point (below) about the figures certainly applies here. The company has done little to distinguish between the various factions, even though such distinction is key to many core aspects of the game, including text in the card deck. Like Mark, I would prefer to see a wooden token system rather than the plastic miniatures. However I would settle for the suggestion that Tom Rosen offered: paint the basis
of the miniatures according to the border color of the region in which they start. This would allow all of the Shadow Army to remain a homogeneous red--in sharp contrast to the blue of the Fellowship--yet, it would permit the players to usually spot the various factions at a glance. Yes, this does not solve the stacking problems that come with having such large plastic figures clumped into oddly shaped regions, but it is a good
start and is certainly cheaper than having to purchase wooden tokens and print labels.
This week also saw my third complete play of Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization. This is a remarkable title in one sense: after every session, I have rated it exactly the same. I cannot think of a more archetypal game for my '6' rating. That is, I can see some superlatives elements in the design. And I can understand why others might absolutely adore it. However, I
find myself less than enthralled. Because of the positive features that I have seen, I would like to keep exploring it despite my general lack of enthusiasm. I went through a similar phase with Race for the Galaxy, Pandemic, and other 6s.
Sometimes, I think my desire to explore and improve at what are merely good games exceeds the enjoyment that I get from the truly great ones. I mean, I could easily have spent the same 9-to-12 hours that I have dedicated to TTA on any number of games that I rate more highly. Yet I sometimes lack the desire to get those great games back to the table, if only because I am so familiar with the greatness that lies within, I don't find myself being pushed to draw more out of them.
In a tangentially related experience, I have spent the bulk of my boardgame-pondering time this last week contemplating a game that I rate quite poorly. I am so convinced that, with an effort that easily exceeds the value of the game experience, I can somehow extract a passable game from an otherwise worthless one. Is that crazy?
Some would call this the Cult of the New effect. But I think
this is something quite different. Most of the Cultists that I have encountered seem driven by two fundamental ideas: that they are somehow missing out on a truly great experience;
and that they are being excluded from participating in the community conversation surrounding boardgames on the cutting edge. I am not talking about either of these motivations (which I am intimately familiar with). Rather I am talking about
wanting to find something worth enjoying in a game that otherwise does not immediately offer itself up to you. In some cases this is the simple challenge of becoming skilled enough at an obviously good game to coax the greatness from it. But in other cases, I simply want to make more from less, even where the cieling is demonstrably low (barring of course those cases where there is nothing redeeming in the design in the first instance).
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8.
Board Game: Outpost
[Average Rating:7.06 Overall Rank:719]
Jon
United States
Urbana
Illinois
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Games Played:
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Thanks to the fine folks at BAP, I managed to break the string of fairly bad weeks with two great games, both new to me. I'm provisionally rating both a 9 for now as I had strong initial reactions to both of them.
_9_ Outpost x1
First time playing this and it was a lot of fun! The Dave who brought the game came in with 53, while I took the second to last spot with 62, edging out slightly by Dave rynelf at 63, Ted managed 67, Andrew 85, and the juggernaut of Aliza won with 94.
Unfortunately, a lot of my thoughts on this are jumbled to the point I don't know how to describe the gameplay well. I enjoyed it a lot, my oldest son watched our game until he got pulled into a Tobago game, and both of us think this would work well with our clan so it is now on the wishlist. Like our Dave, I was near the top of the pack in the early to mid-game, but when era 3 hit I wasn't really ready for it and it acceleraed to the end faster than I was ready for.
I really liked all the components to this one and feel it is a great production; I didn't see any problems with it.
Today my son was asking me if we could order Outpost right away, and I explained I was trying to avoid getting more stuff as it would be one more thing to move to the new place. He's talked it up at least three times since coming back from BAP, and his enthusiasm is factored into my rating.
_9_ Ora et Labora x1
Learned the game thanks to (not our) Dave along with J. and Aliza. I did pretty well at 189 but Aliza got the victory with 190. Meanwhile Dave scored 175, and J was farther behind with 151. J. took a long time to buy additional boards and I suspect this was the main thing that hurt his score.
We were all pretty inefficent though and obviously this is the kind of game you need a few plays to grasp the synerigies between the cards. Overall the production was fine -- yes, the player aid is too flimsy and oddly laid out, but nothing about the game was a showstopper for me. I will be happy to see any improvements that may occur in a second print by the time I get around ordering the game.
The reaction at the table seemed to be this would be better with three than four; however, I liked this better with four than Le Havre with four. Overall I still like Le Havre better. This does appeal to me more than Agricola though, so right now my hierarchy would be Le Havre > Ora et Labora > Agricola, and I'm still willing to trade Loyang for something else.
The nice thing for me is now that I've played this, I can reread the rules and other material and make better sense of all of it, so whenever I get around to playing again I'll have a better sense of what all the levers and switches do.
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"L'état, c'est moi."
Canada
Vancouver
BC
Roger's Reviews: check out my reviews page, right here on BGG!
Who let this guy become wargame subdomain moderator anyways?
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This is the week that was:
San Juan 2
Guillotine 1
No Retreat! The Russian Front 1
Puerto Rico 1
Scrabble 1
Twilight Struggle 1
Edit: Finally, some time to post...
I wrote something nice this morning, but Chrome doesn't have Lazarus...
So last week our RPG group was below quorum, so we played Puerto Rico. I won 47-42-26. I still like PR even after all these years, even though it's been supplanted by San Juan for me, but we didn't have a copy handy. We had a nice chaser of Guillotine, which I would have won big save that the 5 grey cards in front of me went from being worth +5Vp to -12VP when someone played the "cancel a face up card in front of someone else" card. I still came in second, 38-32-24.
The ACTS TS ladder just started a new round and we're already in turn 4.
Jonathan came over on Thursday and we played a double header of San Juan. We didn't have time for a full game after the first one because I had to run my daughter to her music class (tangent below) and so we said "let's play to 7 buildings instead of 12" and so we did. It's a pretty tense and exciting game with a race to only 7. San Juan with the Alea Treasure Box expansion cards is just awesome and I'm still happily playing it.
Musical tangent - my daughter's piano teacher is lovely young lady who just finished her BMus last year and loves 20th century classical music and so she decided to offer a class on 20th century composers. It's part lecture, part arts and crafts, part listening, and I'm living vicariously through my daughter as I'm also a fan of 20th century classical. So far they've covered John Cage and Pauline Oliveros. Let me also plug on my favorite books, Alex Ross' The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century.
Edit 2: No Retreat! The Russian Front... the one piece of advice I have is that, much like every Barbarossa game I've ever played, you need to not stop and consolidate your gains, but press press press or else you will run out of gas just short of your goal.
It is an old school design in some ways, especially with respect to those sticky zones of control. Uncommon is the combat results table in that it's different for the Germans and Russians.
It's thoroughly modern in that there are cards to mediate the action. It's not card driven, and you could certainly, just as in España 1936, choose not to play a card the entire game. For all that, the game is very tense and particularly impressive given the relative lack of units. There aren't that many units in the game, and so there's a lot of emphasis on maneuverability of your units and getting them placed so as to take advantage of breakththroughs in your opponent's line.
The biggest cause of confusion is card play, as the cards can be used for events or other purposes; it is otherwise a pretty straightforward game.
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Judit Szepessy
Canada
London
Canada
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Merkator x2
Maori x4
Ark of the Covenant x1
Bananagram x1
Conflicting Kingdoms x1
Merkator was a two and three player game, I think it works very well both as a two and a three player game, I am not sure, maybe a four player game would be a little chaotic. Our two player game was smooth, with a very narrow victory for my elder son. He likes the game, which is a bonus, as he is picky when it comes to games. He likes AtGoL too, and I feel the two games bear some resemblance, although Merkator feels less tight.
Conflicting Kingdoms is a TCG; I have to play it more to be able to form an opinion. The usual mechanics with a twist in that you build a board with your cards as the game progresses.
I have been having a nasty cold, and have spent last night and much of today in bed, hopefully, I will recover soon.
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Tom Shields
United States
Tacoma
Washington
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2 weeks list; not alot of gaming here:
__9_ Agricola x1 (with Gamer's Deck)
_10_ Innovation x1
_10_ Brass x1
_10_ Mage Knight x4 (solo conquest)
__?_ Ora Et Labora x2 (solo learning)
In Mage Knight, I had carried the Sword of Justice through my last campaign and it's intimations of moral order were complicating my pillaging with feelings of remorse, so standing outside the last city it felt good to break it. The rush of magic from my broken sword doubled my attack & rendered the defenders physical resistance useless, but that didn't drive my squeal of joy. It was the release from the chains of remorse, from existential burden. I broke it over my knee - snap! woosh! - and I stood in the last city, victorious & free. Remorse is something you don't miss.
Agricola I played with a workmate one evening. We were too fried from work to play our normal Twilight Struggle on a 2-player night. We used the Gamer's Deck, unmixed with other cards. A successful introduction to the game for him - he was pleased - and I believe I got 67 points with a full farm & 5-room stone house fully occupied. It seemed this deck eased point making, my whole hand was relatively easy to involve in advancing my position.
I'm curious. I don't have the many plays of Agricola that many of you have. Any favored deck constructions you've settled on? My plays will never reach the count to navigate all these potentials on my own so I'd love any feedback from 'Gric fiends. Keeping in mind this is a favored game when I get together with the family/kids too.
Innovation was dramatic as always.
I played Ora Et Labora solo to teach myself the game. It does not have the pleasure of Mage Knight as a solo game, but I did get the flow & potentials under my belt. I look forward to a first play but I'm not expecting to love it as many geekbuddies do. I admit, as I played it I found it quite abstracted from it's thematic plumbing. A reaction driven, I suppose, both by the itty-bittyness of the cards and the solo play, so I'm not forming an opinion here, but I nodded at Michael's comments last week. It did make me feel surprise that Max rated it so highly, so I expect in competitive play the theme scaffolds well. But I seem to have a genetic ick-Le Havre thing that may get tickled by this game. I wish I understood my preferences better; am I more tactics-pleased rather than getting my rocks following a strategy from beginning to end? I dunno.
This was the last play of Brass, with Jerry, Aliza, Max, and Kurt before taking a break. Which I needed. It remains an amazing immersion into both the game and these players' particular style. I had one moment when my rating nudged 6000, good enough for the 24th ranked on the site, but I've settled in at 5638. I say this hesitantly, but I feel good because this is a smart & tough group and I did OK.
I'd like to take a stab at impressions of the others, purely through what I learned in these 20 odd plays. I'm curious if these descriptions fit & I hope it pleases you that I try to describe you, I mean it to celebrate you as players: Kurt is the wild hair, prone to exuberant plays & creative experimentation, impatient with the constraints but disciplined pushing specific game queries he pursues even at all costs; Jerry has a consistency in exploiting specific economies, & seems to like to build mastery of one economy upon another, and is very creative with turn-order & tempo machinations; Max feels like he plays the game-itself more than you, pushing it to be what he feels it should be, & pursues a strategy rather than chasing tactical moments, and tends to play impatiently, "fuzzily," rather than exploiting the known information; Aliza is creative & tactically savvy, quick to discard an idea that fails and pursue those that do, and likes to take chances - very calculated, I don't mean ill-advised risk taking - unfolding a strategic plan that can pay-off with the big score. Everyone has a competitive will that is nicely humored, and holy smokes y'all are smart puppies.
I predict Vanuatu & Mage Knight will end up my favorite Essen releases. I'm most interested to try Upon a Salty Ocean based on DJ's advocacy. Also, Last Will for family gaming.
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Phoenixes Seattle/Portland/SF travel plans
DJ and I have finalized our travel plans for late March, and Max is almost there, so we know he's coming too. We will be together in Seattle for a couple days, so Michael & Roger, if it fits you are welecome to make the journey down. We'll then spend a couple days in Portland before flying to SF, with Max either flying too or racing us in his Beemer (Max drives fast, so he'll be trying...). And Ben (or is it Benny?), I hope we can meet you as well as Aliza & Dave. We'll be in SF Tuesday evening through Sunday afternoon.
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13.
Board Game: Dune
[Average Rating:7.63 Overall Rank:91]
Kurt R
United States
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
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[9]Dune 1
[6.5] Palastgeflüster 1
[4] Panic Station 1
[6.5] Sticheln 1
[8] Tribune: Primus Inter Pares 1
The correct answer to my poll is 12. I spent 12 hours learning and playing Dune and then another solid hour debriefing afterwards. It was a pretty intense and epic experience and we enjoyed reliving it. Took 1:50 to explain all the rules (4 out of 6 people learning). The rules explainer took us through every single damn rule including his preferred house rules (apparently, everybody plays the game slightly differently). He really did a thorough and patient job; I just wish we could've gotten up and running sooner but he wanted us all to understand our powers and the cards well enough so that we could not have to ask questions that might reveal our plans during the game. In all fairness, we spent an hour taking food breaks, so our total actual play time was probably 8-9 hours total. There were a lot of out of room conferences that contributed heavily to the time; much more than people making moves as the gameplay is surprisingly simple for something with so many rules.
SUMMARY: I got off to a slow start and was openly dissatisfied with the game. I mean, after two hours of rules and several hours of unexciting tug-of-war play, I just didn't see an arc to the game. Is this all there is? Well, it kicked in around hour six.
I don't want every game to last that long, but once it got interesting, it got very interesting and I can see why people are crazy about the game. Tremendous depth and subtlety with maneuvers based on cards and your special abilities plus a lot of coordinating to stop the leader(s). The way the powers complement each other means that alliance building is critical at certain points yet variable such that every game should be different. It also means there are a lot of out of room conferences which contributes to downtime, so you need to accept that going in. I could see instances where an alliance steamrolls the other players for a quick win, but at the same time, dinosaur games like these can deliver epic sessions that live in your gaming group's hall of fame and regale you for years to come. This play was one of those, and I'm happy to play this one again.
FOR THOSE WHO KNOW DUNE: I was the Harkonnen and was aggressive early, possibly too aggressive, and ended up spice poor and with crappy cards. At one point, five of my eight cards were "worthless cards", and of my four traitors, one was in the tanks early on and the owner seemed to have no interest in recalling him and two were for the guy I was allied with (the Bene Gesserits). I didn't have a lot going on. It wasn't till I got my first Karama card that I devised a plan to force-trade cards with the opponent who had the Weather Control card such that we could hold the storm for a turn while we secured the other two strongholds we needed. In making the trade, we picked up the other Karama card (score!) and used that to trade between ourselves. Three of my four traitors weren't helpful to me in battle but I had one for the Guild.
On turn 12 of 15 we made an attempt but fell one stronghold short. On turn 13, we tried again and needed to win two battles both against the Guild who was going for individual win on turn 15. One was a sure loss for us and the other a sure win. We suspected the Guild planned to use the Lasegun against us in the battle where it was a sure win for us. Fortunately, he decided to resolve the other battle against us first (the "sure loss" battle). We used the BG's Voice ability to call for the Lasegun and get it used up so he couldn't use it for the second battle. Turns out we were right and he realized his mistake but in addition he used the one general of his who was a traitor for me. So not only do we get rid of the Lasegun but we win that battle and ensure victory for the second battle b/c he can't use the Lasegun. Game over!
My friend picked up a bunch of fillers in a recent order so you'll see them trickling through here. This weekend was Palastgeflüster and Sticheln. I don't know why, but I really, really liked Palastgeflüster. Maybe it was enhanced by fact that we spoke in silly German accents but I was really engaged by it. The goal is to play six different cards to your tableau in front of you but other players can mess with you so easily that it's ridiculously hard. And if you are forced to play a dupe card to your tableau, well then you lose and everyone else gets a point. My take on the game was that the first five cards you play are skill and then the last one (if you get that far) is complete and utter luck. The planets must be aligned right for you to get that last card down without other players messing with your tableau or trading for the card in your hand to give you something they know you won't be able to use. Makes for great moments of dickery and exasperation. Great little filler!
Sticheln was also quite enjoyable. It's a trick taking game known as "the pain game" because each turn you choose a suit that's bad for you (your pain suit) and any cards you collect in that suit are negative points. What delicious fun playing tricks not so much to win but more so to dump pain cards on your opponents. A tough game to know how to play well but I look forward to playing this more. Scores ended up 42-23-23-(negative 3) so you can see that we were wildly varied in our success (hey, I got 23).
I'm a little frustrated with Tribune in that I have a hard time finding ways to control my experience. My plays seem to fall into this pattern: do some good things, do some good things, get thwarted by someone else, get screwed one turn by the cards ... somebody else wins. I realize there's smart play here but it seems that if someone else interrupts your plan, well then, you're done-fer b/c there's not enough time to rerail your train, and that the person who wins is the one who had the most unfettered experience and/or the right cards coming out at the right time when turn order benefitted them. I don't mean to gripe about this game b/c I do like it, but this play confirmed my sense that I go along for the ride more than direct my own course.
Ah, Panic Station, how much fun we had with you... at your expense. This game totally lived up to its billing, and by that I mean the reputation that I'd read on BGG. I assume everyone is familiar with the tribulations of this game: no clear way to win the game, multiple rules rewrites immediately upon release. It's a neat idea in that the theme is fun and I like the forced trade mechanic but once the infection starts, there doesn't seem much point to the game. I was second infected and then I infected the other three players. We were sitting there saying, "So we all won... er, lost.. er, won... er..." The guy who was the original host said he "won the most" (kidding) but I was the one who did most of the infecting, so ...? In any case, it didn't feel satisfying in the least. I'll give it another try but I don't see the point in playing something that seems half-baked. On a related note, the same designer has a zombie game in the works for 2012, Dark Darker Darkest, which is now on my do not buy list.
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United States
Ithaca
New York
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Monza 3
Magnate 2
City Tycoon (new to me)
Magical Maze (new to me)
Rainbow Fish (new to me)
Yesterday we went thrifting in Rochester, and I got a handful of games for $0.99 and $1.99, including Magical Maze. There are 9 maze tiles with a path underneath, so you don't know the layout, and must maneuver the wizard from the center to your corner. The magnet travels with you, and you move until the magnet hits a wall and the wizard's staff drops. Once you find a wall, you mark it with a wall segment, and the other person gets to move, trying to get the wizard to their corner. Nicely produced. It's the sort of thing I pick up to add images/version info and then pass along in a thrifty generosity box.
Rainbow Fish was another thrifty find from yesterday. Each person gets a deck of fish, and two are turned face up. You roll the die and can move around the circle of fish in either direction trying to land on one of the fish depicted on your cards. If you roll the pretty iridescent fish on the die, you and a friend both get to turn in a fish. Rolling a shark means you miss a turn. It's a Ravensburger, so great production quality. If I still have it the next time I send you something, Bryan, remind me because it might do well at your house.
We've had very spring-like weather for the last several days, but a little while ago it started snowing in earnest.
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Bryan Maxwell
United States
Burtchville
Michigan
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Dominion x 14
Blood Bowl Team Manager x 1
Ora & Labora (France) x 1
Stephenson's Rocket x 1
El Grande x 1
Super Dungeon Explore x 1
Pretty terrific week. Kat and I have been playing the crap out of Dominion this week. We've left the victory cards and treasure cards set up on the table so all we have to do is pull 10 kingdom cards when we want a game. It's been nice. We seem to rotate between Dominion, Innovation and Race periodically.
We continue to be impressed with Ora & Labora and Blood Bowl Team Manager.
It was really good to get El Grande back to the table this week. Everyone enjoyed it (as always) yet it seems like I need to push to get it played. Someone suggested Endeavor again this week, and I chimed in requesting El Grande instead. It was a close game where the lead changed hands several times and I won narrowly by spreading thin for 2nd and 3rd place points as much as possible, and by playing my 13 in the final round and putting the king in my home turf (where I had majority).
Stephenson's Rocket continues to be a hit.* I started off really dominant, gaining majority in a line and merging it into another I was strong in, gaining stations, etc while the others focused more on getting goods early. I nearly lost it all when I noticed (too late) that Jimbob was planting stations on his yellow line which he had a dominant lean in shares in. Why is he doing that? Oh well. OH WAIT. He merged his yellow line into my enormous grey one and with his 4 stations, he was now the leader - meaning a huge payout whenever that line reaches a railway town as well as a large payout at game's end. Thankfully it was too little too late and I held on for the win. It continues to astound me just how much goodness this game squeezes out of an hour. After every play I always ask what time it and am shocked when I find out it's only been an hour.
We also had our second play of Super Dungeon Explore today. We tried the 16-bit "standard" game with 3 heroes and a ~90 minute play time. Here are my comments from the logged play:
We tried the 16-bit game this time, and it was kind of meh. Whether it's a meh that goes away with experience remains to be seen. The challenge was very uneven; the early game was her 3 heroes beating the shit out of my little dudes nearly as quickly as I could spawn them, and me trying to keep them alive long enough to attempt to damage them. I did have 4 damage on the demonkin rogue at one point (2 wyverns attacking - knocked down then swooped) but she had a teleport potion and the mage had a healing potion, so there was no real threat there). Once it got to the late game, I spawned my mini-boss at the last possible moment. She took out the spawn point next turn then the dragon appeared. Her 3 heroes (rogue, druid, mage) were somewhat spread out. Rogue got smooshed by the dragon, druid got weakened and immobilized by the ogre and then mage got beaten up. Essentially it went from all heroes to all monsters quickly. I think knowing how things play out will make some difference in the future, but how much difference I'm not sure. I do think it'd be more fun as a 4 or 6 player game with collaboration between the heroes.
*Thank you so much, Kurt!
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Albatros
Canada
British Columbia
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Albatros
Canada
British Columbia
Games Played
Letters from Whitechapel x1
Ora et Labora x1
Prêt-à-Porter x1
Representative Game
There's something about Prêt-à-Porter that keeps me coming back to it in spite of my inability to win against S. Being an economic game, the winner is simply the player with the most money. But it's just not a simple exercise of designing clothes and selling them; the key is marketing those clothes and the best way is through the fashion shows. And fashion shows are "judged" on four criteria: Quantity, Quality, Trendiness and Public Relations. But each show ranks these four criteria in different ways; anticipating what is needed in later fashion shows is critical to success in this game. So between fashion shows, it feels like a bit of a competition in each of the four areas; some you'll compete hard to win, others you'll just concede defeat and concentrate your energy elsewhere.
And I think four criteria to pursue is just enough. Any more, and this game would be struck down by analysis paralysis. Less would mean the decision-making would be just too simple.
So, in spite of sucking at this game, I can see it staying in our rotation for some time to come.
The Week in Review
As weeks go, it wasn't the greatest for quantity, but I can't complain about the quality. I enjoyed all three games - even if the last one left me a mental wreck.
S's and my play of Ora et Labora on Tuesday night was probably my favourite play of the game yet. I'm starting to devise some strategies and am playing each turn with more in mind of an overall strategy than just grabbing/activating something that looks good for that turn and that turn alone.
As mentioned above, Prêt-à-Porter appears to have some longevity on our gaming table. One thing I didn't mention above is that S and I actually trash-talk a lot playing this game. Wednesday's game was no exception.
Cat fights on the runway! 
Letters from Whitechapel was probably the most tense play yet. And P has figured out that I appear most chipper when I'm closest to being caught so I need to learn to pipe down when the coppers are close at hand. I also need to think twice before I open my mouth and tell him two of the three digits of location number I'm on.
WTF was I thinking?!? 
My regret of the week was not getting Mage Knight: Board Game back on the table. I considered playing it yesterday afternoon while S was at a cooking class, but instead did some programming to update my campaign generator for IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946 as a new patch for this very old game just came out.
The Coming Week
Since I didn't get a play of Mage Knight: Board Game, hopefully this week I'll convince P that he'd rather play that than Letters from Whitechapel again. Or even A Few Acres of Snow as we still haven't played since the official "fixes" were posted. The other game I'd like to play this week would be Dungeon Petz. It's still in shrink, but I'm hoping its time has come.
No new purchases planned this week; unless Last Will is stocked by one of my online shops. Even then, I'm not sure I'll order it unless something else catches my fancy. Shitenno and Upon a Salty Ocean are about the only possible candidates.
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Nosnhoj Kräm
Canada
St.John's
Newfoundland
“Brothers, oh brothers, my days here are done, the Dornishman’s taken my life, But what does it matter, for all men must die, and I’ve tasted the Dornishman’s wife!”
"Oak and iron guard me well, or else I'm dead and doomed to hell." - Andal proverb.
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Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer/RotF Exp (76)
Ascension: Storm of Souls (9)
Blood Bowl: Team Manager - The Card Game (2)
Sticheln (2)
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More Ascension iOS. After having broken the game with the infinite scoring combo, I feel less of a desire to play it. I'm sure I will still continue to play it and it's not as if the 'broken' combo turned me off of the game as it's extremely difficult to pull off. I guess I just feel like I 'won' and now I won't play it quite as much. I guess there is also the issue that I recently got to play 9 physical copy games of the new Ascension base set: Storm of Souls...
Storm of Souls. I love it! It's Ascension so it doesn't really surprise me but it bears repeating: I love it! I ended up enjoying the events, which I worried would impact the game too much. I also to think this is a better and more balanced base set than the original base set. The trophy monsters are great and I like having the fanatic there with special trophy effects that relate to the events. I guess what I really like about this set is that it makes Violence-based decks a more interesting to play with more decision making. I'm going to love exploring the combo's in this game, then I'm going to love mixing it with RotF to see how they interact which I've already been thinking about, and I'm salivating for the expansion to Storm of Souls. Oh, and the physical copy of Ascension wasn't at all annoying for me to play which is kind of weird giving my normal dislike of deck building games shuffling/bookkeeping. Then again, Ascension doesn't have the whole... let's set up these variable cards in the center and sort them back into their piles afterwards... comparing the setup and break down of Ascension vs. Dominion/Puzzle Strike/Nightfall is akin to Gosu vs. Innovation. So much easier. Having the actual physical copies also means various ways to tweak the game not in the rules which you can't do on iOS. I love me some Ascension. I am upgrading all non-promo Ascension products to a 9 now that I know I like the physical game in addition to the digital. I wonder if I would have liked/kept Ascension if I tried to have learned it in physical form first... hmmm.
Sticheln was fun to play with 3 as always. Normally my friend crushes everyone at this game but I was happy to not only have won one of the games, but to see him place last both times. Not because I'm mean and vindictive, but I feel like I'm progressing more at the game and can actually hold my own now.
Blood Bowl: Team Manager was quite the surprise for me! With an approximately 20 page rulebook, I thought it was going to be more difficult of a game to explain to newbies than it actually was. I think this is a good mid/light game that I can use to try and get people to player more complex card games. In fact, I've decided that Eminent Domain is now going to get the ax from my collection. They are kind of Apples (euro) and Oranges (AT) but they both fill a similar niche: 3 - 4 player game that's relatively easy to teach and play. While I don't dislike EmDo, it feels so much more bland than Blood Bowl... I think it's quite extraordinary when the female of the group wasn't balking at the football-ish theme... sorry if that sounds sexist!
Overall, these past two days covered all of my non-iOS gaming and were fantastic. I had flirted with the idea of doing solo Mage Knight earlier this week, but it ended up on the backburner in favor of some video gaming (LIMBO/Geshundheit!)/VGG work (uploaded a bunch of iOS games to the database and some images). Maybe I'll get around to it this week!
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Max Maloney
United States
Portland
Oregon
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Games Played
_9_ Magic: The Gathering 40
_9_ Dominion 3
_7_ Galaxy Trucker 1
_7_ Power Grid: The First Sparks 1 New!
_7_ Kingdom Builder 1
_7_ Dungeon Petz 2
Week in Review
I played in a new set's prerelease tournament for Magic this weekend. The correct answer to my copying-Kurt poll was 19 hours. I could have made it look more impressive if I didn't say "the last 48 hours" because it was actually 19 hours in one 24 hours span.
I showed up at the game store at 6:30 for the regular Friday Night Magic event. After that, I stayed for the midnight prerelease. I left at 6:15 in the morning and was home in bed with teeth brushed by 6:45. I woke up at 9:15 before my alarm could go off nearly two hours later. I ate some food and showed up at the game store at 11:30, where I stayed another 7+ hours.
I followed that up (the same night) with a light evening of Galaxy Trucker and Dominion. It was great to see both games return to the table.
Today I tried Power Grid: the First Sparks. I liked it more than Power Grid on my first exposure, though it feels like a game that might have less depth to it. I can imagine being done with it after a few plays. Conversely, it may just be a great redesign. The only thing that feels truly changed is the removal of auctions.
I ended the day with Kingdom Builder and Dungeon Petz. Kingdom Builder is a good game. After two plays I feel confident it's worth playing, even if it's not worth loving.
Dungeon Petz continues to elude me and I don't like the feeling that I can't tell what matters. I want to feel as if I'm improving but I'm still stabbing at it to see what it does. It is most similar to Dungeon Lords in that there is just enough randomness to make planning difficult. In some games this is used to encourage resourcefulness and adaptability, but in this pair it more often results in firing blanks. I sometimes feel as if I make a plan and then wait to see if random chance will allow my plan to reach fruition, which is dissatisfying for me.
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Nicolai Broen Thorning
Denmark
Ebeltoft
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Games Played Week 4:
2x Au Backe!
2x Geistesblitz
1x The City
Game of Choice:
We finished the week finally playing The City with the correct rules. It was a lot different, a lot faster and still fun. I look forward to many more games.
The Week in Review:
Aside from the game of choice we only managed to play once. An evening of gaming with M., which I detailed last week. Great fun.
V. played a few games with the kids on Saturday, but I have been feeling very, very tired all week, so I sat out, plus I had some things to take care of outside of the house.
The Week Ahead:
V. is away Thuesday and Thursday, but at least we have a whole weekend of gaming to look forward to. 
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20.
Board Game: Eclipse
[Average Rating:8.34 Overall Rank:7]
Железный комиссар
United States
Madison
Wisconsin
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Games Played:
Eclipse
Glen More
Walnut Grove
Week in Review:
Eclipse was a lot of fun and I'd like to play more. In Glen More I thrashed the table, 73-56-48-45. Hadn't played in six months or so, still holding up as a favorite. Walnut Grove flopped.
More later.
Update 1:
Eclipse is a triumph of pacing. Everything hums along incredibly smoothly, yet to me it doesn't feel like anything has really been sacrificed or "streamlined out." And though I don't want to reflexively prop up the reigning dichotomy, I'm someone who found Twilight Imperium (third edition) profoundly, painfully dull. Eclipse offers tech-upgrades, multiple currencies, exploration and colonization, customization and specialization, and a variety of starting civs. The economic side of things feels robust but clean at the same time. The allure of "reputation" (combat) discourages turtling, but the nature of exploration and wormholes gives players limited control over loose "borders." Sure, there's plenty of randomness and undoubtedly some luck that comes with it, but most of it feels both reasonable in scope and thematically appropriate. There are some rough edges. For instance, poor exploration draws can undermine a player rather severely at the outset, as we saw one player in our game ringed by three ancients. Here, gameplay suffers ever so slightly in favor of theme. The opposite also occurs: a player's ability to research technology depends on a random and scarce common pool, which makes about as much sense as not being able to plow your fields in Agricola if your neighbor has already done so. Here, thematic integration suffers slightly in favor of gameplay (and in particular, variability).
I gave it an easy eight. I enjoyed exploring the game even though the one veteran at the table schooled us 50-24-23-16. I like the system of tech discounting and the trade-off between efficiency and raw power. I like that a sound economy seems vital - so it's not a pure slug-fest like Nexus Ops - but you have to get your hands dirty one way or the other. I'm frankly not sure what I dislike about Eclipse. I'm not strongly attracted to the grand 4x space-opera style of game, but this seems like a good one, maybe the definitive one. I "get it." The runaway climb up the rankings makes sense.
Update 2:
...aaaaand, then there's Walnut Grove. Melissa won our game and seemed to enjoy herself to some extent, so I asked her opinion of it on the way home:
"You know, I guess I had fun, but I didn't really see how anyone was making "good" decisions"
"To be honest, I never really saw how to score points. They just sort of happened, obscurely, in the background."
"In a lot of games, players can head down a specific path, and you can see the consequences of that. Here's it's pretty much all the same."
As for me, the usual litany: few actions, few options, lackluster options, terrible integration of theme, poorly differentiated resources, poorly differentiated workers, severely constrained (and uninteresting) player interaction, artificially tight scoring range, shallow spatial component, and above all, an upkeep that correlates nearly 1:1 with resource-generation.
Of course, this was all going on in a highly enjoyable social context so my near-disbelief was happily obscured. Probably the least enjoyable game I've encountered since Constantinopolis.
Glad I tried it.
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...at the way the designer seems to jump to the game's defense every time someone disses it. I mean, I expect a designer to have a response, but he seems a bit defensive to me in his replies, which put me off the game a little. I know I'll end up playing it, as I got it as a Christmas gift (I talked excitedly about the game a lot before all of the negative stuff started coming out.
