July 2008 Game of the Month

Well, July ended up being a lean month for gaming. I've been pretty busy just packing and trying to get my house sold (including trying to get my house repaired from storm damage last month). This pretty much left me with one game night and some cards with my folks another. Oh well. So, the game of the month this time is still a great game. Medici is one of Knizia's best auction games. The play is simple, so teaching the mechanics doesn't take very long *(even if you play the auction the wrong way). The beauty of this game is the risk/reward bidding. Your bids are done with your victory points. If you bid high early, you may miss out on things you need later. Wait too long, and there may be nothing left for you to bid on (cheaply or not). In short, when played with players that are familiar with the game, it becomes a great big game of chicken. There are loads of ways to score points each round, so you have to balance scoring (getting paid) with building up something that will help you a couple rounds later. This is fast and tense and I really really like this game. I have the new version of the game, which has a much better board (there are still flaws as far as I'm concerned, but it is still way way way better than the last crappy version). This version also uses tiles for the goods instead of cards, which are nice, yet not as easy to use as the cards. The tiles should hold up longer than cards being shuffled and handled and bent, but its really much easier to deal cards off a deck than to pull tiles from the bag (and try not to look at them) before each round. Its also easier to pass the deck than the bag of tiles. These are small quibbles though. If you are looking to get this game, buy the new release. Its pretty inexpensive and its about the best version I've seen so far.

Back to the Chips

Once again, inspiration struck. I've always really liked the Samurai Palace chips, since the first time I saw them. I think they are really slick looking chips. Unfortunately, they are also like $1.25 each. No way I'm spending that kind of cash on poker chips. I settled on Nexgen Las Vegas chips for a couple reasons. They have a nice clean two color look, and they have a recessed middle which makes them perfect for labeling. Now, I've been kicking around the art for the labels since before I got the chips. When I last did labels, I did a dragon theme with AZBoardgamers on them. This time around, I wanted to do something different, just didn't know what. So, inspired by the Samurai Palace chips, I dug around and for some Samurai art. I never did find anything simple like I wanted, but I did run into Hokusai. Hokusai was a Japanese artist most famous for The Great Wave of Kanagawa. So I started looking at some of his other art and found 6 images I liked. I scanned some chips and pasted the images on so I could see what they looked like. They actually look better than a lot of other things I've tried. Now I need to try out a little numbering/denominations on them and see how that looks. One nice thing about this art - it tends to have good chunks of open space to take the denominations. I'll probably not use the same thing on the backside of the chips. The Samurai Palace chips use a black back with a grey-ish kanji character and the denominations. I'm thinking about doing the same thing. Let me know what you think.

Game Collection

The BGG recently overhauled its game collection interface. I'm not sure that I care for the changes yet (I know I don't care for the new interface for games played, though I appreciate that you can now track opponents and wins). At any rate, I went back through my collection and updated a few ratings and added a few comments to games (and took out a few that I have traded recently). I'm sitting at 245 or so games. You can also track games you used to own if you care about that sort of thing. I don't care enough to go back through the system trying to find things I don't own anymore - I apparently didn't want them. If I did want them, they are on my wishlist. Going forward, I'll probably check the used to own box when I trade something away, but I'm not going to try and complete the backfill...
I'm trying to decide if I want to bother tracking Heroscape anymore. It got to be too hard to track the expansions using the geek (since it does it by wave, not each blister or whatever), so I started using the spreadsheets that folks were adding to the geek. Even that is a pain in the butt, but I have no better solution yet. At any rate, I'm thinking about taking out all the HS expansions from my collection on the BGG - they don't make much sense in that particular context. I won't record games played against an individual "wave". Nor would I rank them by wave. And finally, I'm not going to trade them. That ought to drop my collection about 10 games, but oh well.

Game Night

Friday, July 18, 2008
We are rapidly approaching the sale of my house (and thus my move back to Arizona). I decided to try and head down to the Game Shoppe for one last game night. Brian Gomez and Karen Zimmerli were going to meet up with me, as was Mike Garrett (though Mike wasn't sure what time he'd be able to get there as he was returning to town from a trip to Canada). Brian and I had worked out a trade too, so I was going to get a new game for one of my extra copies of an Age of Steam map. At any rate, I got there and Mike ended up being about 30 minutes away, so I pulled out Wabash Cannonball to teach Brian and Karen. As I have learned already, Wabash is not that great when played with new players vs experienced, but I didn't mind playing a teaching game. What happened right off the bat was that I ended up winning a share in Penn (red) for like $12 or $15 - something far far too low. I realized I'd need another share of something, as red was going to dead end pretty quickly. Karen bid up yellow (C&O), so I let that go. I bid up blue (B&O) and let Brian have green (NY). I started expanding both blue and red and then watched as Brian drove green to cut off red. Having no funds, I pretty much gave up or red and concentrated on making blue's value higher. I put up shares of yellow and green, but Brian and Karen didn't want to surrender control of their companies, and it wasn't until that third or forth share of each company that I finally captured some other share. Brian and Karen mostly concentrated on "their" companies, and so I ended up having the only share of blue the entire game. - basically earning me an average of $13 or so each dividend. The game went about as I expected for a three player "newbie" game. This one should really be more interesting when I finally play with folks that have played multiple times (and not just Mike Garrett, but a whole group of folks that have played).
Mike had finally arrived, so we were trying to figure out what to play next. The Shoppe had a copy of Ticket To Ride: The Card Game sitting out, and since Brian and Karen knew the game, I asked to be taught. All I knew was that it was a bit like Mamma Mia and had a memory aspect. Well, that's kinda true. You place train cards into a stack and then at the end of the game, use that stack to complete tickets. There is a slight amount of memorization of what you've been able to turn over into your pile (there is not a shared pile, but rather each player has their own stack to complete tickets) but its not as nearly tough as Mamma Mia. Its light and fast, and I'll probably try to grab this online to complete and order or something.
To finish up the night, we played a game of Medici. Turns out I remembered the auction incorrectly when I taught/played this at the Geekway a month ago - its a one and done, not round and round auction. A well. One and done and its still fun. And I did even better than when we had been in St. Louis.

Random Dreck

Just some random thoughts from a bored mind...
Martin Wallace has stopped the fight over the name Age of Steam. He and John Bohrer had been fighting over the name for months, delaying any reprint of Age of Steam and the publishing of Mayfair's new version of Martin's game. So? Well, it means that folks will someday finally be able to get a copy of AoS again, since JB will be able to print it again. It also means folks will be able to finally play Mayfair's version of the game (which is supposed to be compatible with all the AoS maps - how they'll mention that now is another story I suppose). Whether he was right or wrong, JB came off as an ass and turned off a lot of people. As much as I actually dislike JB, I sadly cannot keep him from my money, as I really like the stuff that Winsome is producing lately (maybe not the production quality, but the games themselves seemed to be my kind of game). So yes, I am going to be buying JB's USA release of his Essen 2008 set. All $130 bucks worth :( - its two new games, and AoS map set and an expansion for Wabash Cannonball.

Also in the limited edition news, Ted Alspach recently announced an Essen set of AoS maps in the $80 range. I really want these too, but man that's a lot of cash to drop considering I'm moving in 3 weeks or so. Damn their timing.

I didn't think I'd be doing any trading for a while, but then DoW bent me over and announced they'd be releasing TtR:Nordic in English in North America. So I unloaded it in the most recent math trade to get something of value (while this copy still had any). I ended up grabbing a brand new copy of Atlantic Star. I've never played this one, so I really just grabbed it as possible trade fodder down the road.

I still owe Mike Gingold a copy of Atolla Modulis. I bring this up as a reminder to myself to mount the stupid crap already and also because the last item I mentioned end up going to none other than Mr. Gingold himself. I had AS shipped to him and with any luck, when I finally (someday) get to Phoenix, I'll give Mike his two games and get my one.

Heh. I have another game awaiting me in Phoenix as well. I got a copy of Runebound 2nd ed in a math trade at the start of the summer. Knowing I'd be moving, I asked the trader to just hold it for me until I could get back. Well, soon enough I'll be back.

With any luck (or will of God, or whatever you prefer) I'll be living in Mesa, AZ and it turns out I'll be within a few miles of Eric Von Burg and Dion Garner. Both are gamer friends of mine that I enjoy very different styles of games with. Erik seems to really like the more thematic games and plays as much for the fun as anything. Dion is solid Euro guy. I'll probably get a bunch of games like Doom, Descent, Heroscape (lots of Heroscape), Heroquest, Runebound, etc played with Erik and will see about maybe doing something two-player-esque with Dion (maybe a C&C:Ancients campaign or something). I'm probably getting ahead of myself a bit, but I really miss those guys.

I'm going to miss the guys here too. I really liked playing with Justin Kosec, Mike Garrett, Mike, Mike, Dave, Conrad, Steve, John etc etc. Its too bad the Game Shoppe was so far away, as I enjoyed the store and the manager Becky and her boyfriend Heath. Everyone was great to game with and I played a LOAD of games with Mike Garrett that I'd probably not have ever played if I hadn't met him. I already miss Justin Easley and his brother Jason who are in Ill-in-noise already. Hopefully they will someday be passing through my corner of the world - I'll always welcome a face-to-face game of something.

Math Trades

I'm in a lull at the moment. There is a math trade that started up - I looked through the roughly 427 items and nothing caught my eye. Moreover, the one or two things that were interesting enough were not interesting enough that I'd part with anything in my collection. My collection has somewhat become like this:

• Games I'm just not going to part with - Age of Steam, A Game of Thrones, Indonesia, my Alea collection, my Crokinole board etc, etc
• Games that are ok, that I'd be ok parting with, but are not worth the effort of trading - Ingenious, Pizzaro and Co, St. Petersburg, Return of the Heroes etc
• Games I don't currently play (may not ever play), but I just can't bear to part with for various reasons - HeroQuest, versions of Axis and Allies (basically any of my Hasborg/AH collection), Spiel de Jahres winners, old family games (rummikub, mhing), whatever.

At any rate, I'm about 90% happy with the current state of my collection and a lot of the stuff I'd like to get anymore doesn't even fall into the normal stuff that gets listed in trade lists. To top it off, even if it did, I don't have anything I'd be willing to trade to acquire rare or top end game things. There is certainly some cruft that I'd get rid of in my collection if it wouldn't cost me as much in shipping the junk out as it would to buy a game that I could get in return. And yet, that won't stop me from adding a game...

Annoying Day

Today was an annoying day to be me. First - Days of Wonder went back on their word and announced today that they would be releasing TtR:Nordic Countries in English. Good thing I had my friend Marie go through the effort of bringing me one back from Norway. Not.
Last week, Bezier Games (Ted Alspach) announced a new Essen pack of AoS maps. That's all well and good, but its also $80. I was all set to order this, but then today I got the announcement that the Winsome Games Essen package will be released in October. This 4-game package will be a whopping $120 (plus shipping). One of the "4" games is an expansion for Wabash Cannonball. Now, having played Wabash and having read a lot about some Winsome games recently, I'm fairly certain I'd love the two games in the pack (the "3rd" is an AoS expansion). I'm also certain I'd like the AoS map and the expansion. However, the standard Winsome way means the games will look cheap as hell and I'll just end up re-doing them. Thus making a $130 investment annoying. Even more annoying is that I'm moving in the next few weeks and right now is a terrible time to try and spend $200 on some games. Ugh!

Top 10 Reasons Jason Gives Me, So I Will Keep Playing Memoir With Him

1. Run, run as fast as you can - you can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man! (I still have no clue what that means).
2. Hey its random, don't let that get you down.
3. At least the scenarios are over quickly
4. You don't suck that badly
5. See, your problem is that you always have to play your next card face up so I can abuse you like I do your mom.
   
6. After 51 scenarios, you are only down by 21 medals - that's less than 1/2 a medal per scenario!
7. After we get through all 128 scenarios, we can switch sides and then play with the rules that balance things.
8. Did I say 128? I meant 182
   
9. Don't feel bad - after all the Axis did win the war... um, never mind.
10. You still do better than Mike G does against me.

So yeah, I started another scenario today and in FIVE turns, he beat me 6-2. He beats me like a ho that's been holding out on him. I get beat more than a dog with a bladder infection and a timid personality. Well, that makes the Axis now ahead 226-205 for the campaign.

June 2008 Game of the Month

Well, I had a number of choices this month, as I went to the Geekway to the West 2008 and played a number of games and tried a number more. Honestly, the game I enjoyed the most was Indonesia - however, I want to keep this list unique each month if I can so that I talk about a different game rather than having the same one pop up over and over.

Glory to Rome wins this month as a game that I found FAR more interesting than Race For the Galaxy. It plays 5 out of the box and while the play is similar in features to Race (cards are used to build or for costs etc) it plays out a bit differently due to player interactions that aren't available in Race and that makes it a far more interesting game to me. Not only that, but its CHEAPER. Its a smaller company that makes this game and its the first game I plan to purchase after I move (I've put myself on a buying hiatus).

So, other games in contention this month? Medici was a candidate - this is my favorite Knizia auction game. Micro Mutants: Evolution showed me that tiddley winks could be cool and fun - fun enough for me to buy, but not to make the top game this month. Subbuteo was a lot of fun, but I don't know that I'd have as much fun with this one unless it was with Justin Easley.

Stop the Bleeding (please)

And after Bug River, Jason took it to me again in 6 turns, whopping me 6-2. I don't hate Memoir, but I don't recommend playing it as Jason and I have (just playing one side the whole way). Reason. Its too hard to balance. In a scenario that favors the Axis, I get screwed if luck slides a little to one side (and maybe I'm jaded here, but it seems that most of this damn game favors the Axis). There have been games I've won and won by a decent amount (though few and far between). Now, having said that, Jason probably plays just a little better than I do, but come on! Averaging a kill a turn? Stupid game. Axis now ahead 220-203 for the campaign.

Bug River

The never ending Memoir saga continued with the Bug River scenario. This one starts the Russians at a disadvantage unless they can get the train to station for some reinforcements. I didn't get the train to the station. Jason won 5-3. As is typical for me, whenever I'm one turn from turning the tide in my favor, Jason smashes me and ends the game. The Axis remains ahead 214-201 for the campaign.

More Trading

You'd think I'd be done trading things. Really. I just don't have that much left I want to trade. So anyway... a quicky 36 hour math trade popped up on the radar and I threw a few things in the ring. Arkham Horror, Fearsome Floors and Bus. I put up Arkham, because I'm not in love with it. Its a good game thematically and it is interesting, but I'm not that big on co-op games. I have Pandemic, which for me scratches that itch. Also, I'll never get Arkham to the table in Arizona with the guys I'll normally play with (and if I wanted to badly enough, there are other folks in AZ that have it and would play...). I got Fearsome Floors (NIS) off the trade table at the Geekway to the West 2008. I didn't really want it, but it was the best available choice (actually the best choice was a game I wanted but didn't see sitting there). At any rate, FF is ok at best. I didn't mind trading it at all. Bus. Remember Bus? I listed this in the MT, and I clearly stated that the boards were warped. However, as I got it, it was not going to get played, so I decided to get rid of it.
So what did I get? Beppo der Bock which is a kids game that uses magnets - the kids should love it. I'm also getting a like new copy of Doom: The Boardgame. I don't know why I want this. I just want this. I have Descent. I still want this. I finally got it. And yes, now I'll need the expansion. Lastly, I'm getting Bus. Yes, I'm getting Bus. A different copy. Couldn't be worse could it? I've traded with the guy in the past and he listed the game as being played, so the boards can't be anywhere near as bad.

Memoir 44

Jason and I got through another scenario - Breakout to Lisyanka. This was not really anything special - the only note being I didn't have to do the retarded Russian command rules. I mostly sat back and just tried to stay alive. Three of my four cards were always not very useful. Luckily my 4th card was typically useful. For the most part, Jason didn't make a big dent in me and I picked his units off as they closed in and was able to finish the game up 7-5. Axis is still ahead 209-198 for the campaign. I just can't seem to seriously make up any ground (and the next scenario looks to suck for me).

Memoir 44

Jason and I finished up Ponyri today. This was (I think), the first Russian campaign I played where the Russian command rules were not in effect. It didn't help. Jason's tank blitz was in full effect and he managed to move his right flank of tanks fully at least twice. Though he started the scenario with a 2 point deficit, there was no way I could withstand an assault like that. He won 7-5, moving the balance for the war 204-191 for the campaign.

Return to Memoir

Jason Maxwell and I fired up Memoir 44 again after a long layoff. I seem to go in spurts with this game. I can play for a while, then get bored, then come back and play some more. I really only think I'd play M44 face-to-face if it was overlord. Otherwise I'd rather play C&C or BattleLore. At any rate, we fired up Vassal and finally played the Red Blockade scenario. I got a bit lucky early on and nailed a few of Jason's tanks, which slowed him down enough that I eventually won. Score is now 197-186 in the Axis (Jason's) favor.

NOT A Game of Thrones

Well, we had planned to play a little 6-player A Game of Thrones Saturday. Its been two years since I've been able to play one of my favorite games, so I was actually looking forward to it a bit. However, Justin Kosec and his buddy Ben never arrived. We (Mike Linder, John Davis, Mike Garrett) were unable to get a hold of them, so we abandoned that plan and switched gears to Indonesia. This was my second playing and I have to say I was impressed. In much the same way that Wabash Cannonball continues to suck me back in, Indonesia will play out so very differently each time depending on a lot of factors. This particular game saw a tight grouping of cities and shipping lines, making the ownership of shipping nearly worthless. Mike Garrett went for mergers early, which changed a lot of the dynamics from our first game where we didn't research mergers until late in the game. What we ended up with in this game was a lot of size two cities that were tightly grouped around the shipping lines and a LOT of Siap Faji. Mike Linder and John each had a Siap Faji company, and in the end I think the fact John had no shipping gave Mike a slight edge. We eventually conceded the win to Mike after Mike G merged some oil companies, allowing me to acquire the last company needed to end the game.

Me and My Menolippu

As you can see, I am the proud owner of Menolippu - i.e. Ticket To Ride Nordic Countries. This game came to me courtesy of my friend and co-worker Marie Shipman. I happen to just be chatting with Marie one day when I found out that she was in Norway. I asked if she could grab me a copy and she said she would go look. Turned out there was a game shop (or toy store) just down the street and within a few hours she had a copy in her hot little hands. A few weeks later, I had the game in my hot little hands. I do not know what I'm going to do with it. Maybe I'll just leave it in the shrink for a few years and then sell it for as much money as Black Ops. With my heading back to Phoenix (someday) I'll be able to play it with Bobby to see if its worth keeping or not.

Tichu at the Geekway

So, I got a lot of thank you's for "running" the Ticu tourney at the geekway, and a lot of suggestions, so I just wanted to throw a couple of thoughts out about the what and whys of how things went. The original plan was to simply try and run a double elimination Tichu tourney over the course of two days, where we would announce the pairings and then let folks find their opponent and duke it out. I didn't want to schedule a large block of everyone's time for a couple of reasons - we got some response, but not enough and I didn't want people sitting out because they thought a large portion of their weekend would be occupied with playing cards. The other reason being that not everyone was going to be available on Friday. We didn't start until Saturday because we had open spots I wanted to try and fill. In retrospect what I should have done is simply run the stupid thing Friday night at 6:00. All at once. Can't make it? Too bad. In a game that hasn't finished by 6:00? Too bad - you forfeit your first match. Now, I'm not trying to be harsh, but rather fair to everyone else. Given the limited number of participants, I think that those limitations would be ok. Next (and I meant to do this, I just forgot) - print out the brackets ahead of time. They don't have to be filled in, just printed and ready to be filled in. You can find all number of brackets online so you can adjust for the number of teams. And that's it. While I know a number of players found the 500pt matches a bit short, I think for this format its ok. It makes the games a little more exciting and tense (I thought) and you still play the championship match(es) to 1000. Any other thoughts?

Geekway to the West 2008 - Saturday

And after a slight delay, we continue. Saturday was shaping up to be a good day. We had planned to start the day with Indonesia, which Jay Moore (MuKid) had said he'd play with us. Jay had been my secret Santa this last year and had made that event pretty fun, so I was glad to just have met him, but wanted to get in some gaming. We were going to play Age of Steam, but the library copy (Jay's) was missing a couple bags of tiles (I heard he found them) so we had to change plans. When we got to the Con Saturday morning at 8:00, I heard some guys say Jay wasn't going to be there until 9:00. I was supposed to be orchestrating a Tichu tourney, so I knew then I would not get Indonesia in over the weekend - c'est la vie. I still wanted to game a little with Jay though, so when Jason headed off to something with the Illinois gang and Justin and I checked out Manoeuvre from the play-and-win table.
I had been reading about this one a little bit on the Geek and was interested. It sounded like a scaled down version of C&C:A (if there could be such a thing). After playing, that is actually the best description I could muster. Since neither of us had played before, we banged our way through the rules (short) and started playing. Of course we missed some, and Justin cheated (I told him I would report him in my blog), but overall it was about like you'd figure from a first playing. If you like the C&C type games, you'll probably like this. Once players know the rules, it probably plays even faster. This is not as in depth as C&C, but its faster and has a number of different armies out of the box. The "Cheater" won of course. Jason was nearly done with whatever he was doing, so Justin taught me Balloon Cup while Jason checked out AoEIII and began sorting the UNBAGGED game.
This one is pretty simple, and there were only two things I remember about the game: Justin repeatedly reminded me to draw to "make up for cheating" - which I told him I'd also mention in the blog. So - "If you play with a cheater, he'll be nice in the next meaningless game so you will keep playing with him". :D The other thing I remember is that someone walked by and mentioned they remember us playing this with a different theme the previous day (Battle Line) - which in retrospect was a fair comment. Justin beat me here, though I really didn't care, because I just wanted to get to our next game.
Our next game being Age of Empires III. Jay Moore and Matt Dimmic (mdimmic) joined us to round out the table. I've only played this twice previously, but I really love this game and was super happy to get it played. I sort of went with what was available to me, but got screwed right off the bat with a failed discovery - which has happened to me every game I have played on my first discovery try. Oh well, what are you going do? Justin was sending soldiers to the new world left and right, so I gave up on that game pretty early, only grabbing points in one territory all game (I got three guys there for the good). I finished in 4th place. Justin killed guys most of the game and won by like two points. All told, still a good time. I'm really glad I got to game with all these guys and wish I had been able to play with Jay and Matt more than the one game.
After that, I had to go play some Tichu. I had tried to run a Tichu tourney this weekend. The results were mixed. I think everyone had fun, but in all honesty, it was a sloppy effort on my part. I really didn't want to have to try and lock people down for a long chunk of time. As it was, we only had 6 teams, which meant two teams got byes anyhow. At any rate, I teamed up with Ravi (snoozefest) and we managed wins in our first three games to head into the winner's bracket semis. There, we would have been up against Timothy Hunt and Jason Little, but Jason had to head out to Minnesota to start his new job with Fantasy Flight. Timothy recruited Roger Dominick (atholbrose) to be his partner and the game was on. It was a strange game. Timothy called Tichu the first hand and they easily went one-two in about 2 minutes. Now, since we were only playing to 500 (to keep the games from lasting forever), we were in trouble right off the bat. Only thing was, I had two bombs the next hand and Ravi and I went Tichu one-two. Roger called Tichu on the 3rd hand and they grabbed 80 points to sit right on the brink of winning. Next hand, I went out first and just needed Ravi to go out next to save the win, unfortunately not and we fell to the losers bracket. I was unable to attend Sunday, so Justin Heimburger (juheimbu) stood in for me. Timothy recorded the results in his geeklist. A really good time, and in retrospect, I would have just blocked off time for this and run it that way. Oh well.

Somewhere in between playing lots of Tichu, the trade table started. Basically someone is picked at random to start, then they pick something. Whoever's game got selected makes the next pick and so on. I threw in two games: Winds Of Plunder and Sudden Death!. I felt I got a little hosed because Winds of Plunder is a bit small and it got buried beneath a lot of CRAP. When it finally got picked, the game I wanted to get for it was hidden behind a lot of crap. Sudden Death was avoided until nearly the end (probably due to large box size and the fact that the box was in super crappy condition (the game was not though). So whatever - the only thing that ended up being interesting about the trade, was the game of Eketorp that I won. Ravi and I sat down to play with Ryan Parish (who was one of our next Tichu opponents). We were joined by Chris Reuber (sikeospi) who was wandering by. Ryan went through the rules (a bit slowly to my mind, as this wasn't that hard a game to pick up). We started and got about say 1/2 way through one round when the trade table guys asked that everyone with games come stay near the trade table to speed things up. I had to leave, so the group basically played my player as RANDOM. Turns out I won. Heh.
After a bunch of Tichu and the trade table ended, I hooked back up with Jason and Justin. I wanted to play a little Edel, Stein and Richt so one of Jason's Illinois buddies Adam Osborn (atomzero) joined us. It was interesting and boring at the same time. I can't remember how many times it happened, but we often had 3 guys picking the same action. I have Justin down as the winner in my notes, but I thought I had a good amount of cash more than he did in the end. Whatever.
. Next the four of us played Bamboleo. Now, I had no desire to play this whatsoever. It looks dumb as hell. But, the guys wanted to play and I was too tired to care, so I caved to trying something new. Guess what? It is still dumb as hell. It was also a little cool and yes, a little fun. We spent a long time getting everything on and then getting it balanced for the first round. After that, we just threw the crap on the disk and played. Adam was the guy dumping the disk nearly every time, so the guy after him (Justin) ended up winning.
Adam left and we caught Karen wandering around and sucked her and Brian into a game of Medici. CJ Faria (CJHeart) asked to join and we had six. I was the only player who had played before, so I explained everything and away we went. My first ship sucked as far as matching goods up (though it was valuable), so I had to settle into trying to just grab valuable ships cheaply. It payed off as I was often able to run the other player's bids up and then dump it on them. I really like this game a lot and think its one of my favorite Knizia games. The beauty here was that Medici was one of the play-to-win games. Turns out Justin won it. Justin, Jason and I had to leave before the drawings Sunday and we had asked Brian and Karen to grab any games we won. Turns out I also won something - Manila (blech). I gifted my free game to Karen to thank her for getting up early Sunday and running me to the airport. I traded with Justin for Medici since he doesn't have much interest in it. So maybe we all made out a little. Well, not Jason. He didn't win any play-to-win games. Though I thought he won a door prize. Whatever. Overall, it was a good experience and I had a good time. I'd do the Tichu tourney differently and I might have skipped the trade table, but for the most part, it was a great weekend and I met a lot of really nice folks.

Geekway to the West 2008 - Friday

I just got back from the Geekway to the West (2008 ed) and before I dive into the session reports and so forth, I thought I'd get a few preliminary things out of the way. First off, I'd like to thank Jamie Miller (jami1kenob), who was nice enough to offer me a ride from the airport to my hotel Thursday night when (at the last minute) I choose to fly out instead of drive. She didn't know me from Adam, but offered to help a gamer out. As a (very) small token of thanks, I gave her a copy of Escalation. I kept meaning to try and play something with her, but never did. It should be noted that her gesture of good karma payed off, as she was the Grand Prize door prize winner - World of Warcraft:The Boardgame + both its expansions. Next thank you goes out to Karen Zimmerli (grrlgeek42), whom I met Friday morning (along with her boyfriend Brian Gomez (hskrfn822) - both of Bellevue, NE). Karen was also gracious enough to get up early this morning and haul my sorry butt back to the airport after I discovered that my previous plan (the Easleys) wasn't going to work. Thank you both - I'll find something for Karen (if I can find something Brian doesn't already have in his collection). And now, on with the show.
The Geekway started Friday morning at 8:00. Not for me. I was waiting for Justin (gameInformant) and Jason Easley (The Gamebler) to drive into town. They got to St. Louis quickly enough and we were at the Con and ready to go about 9:00. The Geekway has a Play-&-Win table, where you can checkout and play games that were donated. At the end of the Con, all players who played a game were eligible for a drawing for the game. Don't know if we won any, but I'll know more soon. At any rate, we started the game by Justin and Jason teaching me Glory to Rome. Glory to Rome is what Race for the Galaxy should have been. And by that, I mean: interactive. You can screw with the other players and steal their crap and so on. So, basically, its a card game where you are building things that give you abilities and the cards have multiple purposes and so on (sound familiar?). It is sufficiently different from Race that you could argue for owning both, but I think Race suffers from two flaws - multi-player solitaire and no way to come back if your cards suck for the first couple rounds. Glory is about the same length and more interactive. Like most games in this small genre, more playings will allow understanding the flow better, but I did pretty well my first game out and wasn't far behind the winner (Jason).
After checking Glory back in, I wanted to get in a game of Samurai with Justin face-to-face. Knowing that last year, our host Jay Little (yennen) hadn't played much, I asked if he'd like to join us (and we offered to sit up front with him so he could still handle incoming traffic). He accepted and we began playing with random hands. We also abused Mr. Little a bit - not so much purposefully, but he did get screwed a lot. After Jason Easley was the only player to go for the 3-totem city, I joined him, but got hosed and only claimed one of the three totems. I then spent time just playing opportunistically. In the end, Justin and I each had a majority and I had one piece more than he did for the win. Poor Jay had pulled down only a single of each piece. I haven't played this in a long time live and found its just as good in front of you as on the computer (which I have found to not be true for a number of games like PR, which is too fiddly to bother setting up.
Jason then payed us back by teaching us a new game (one that he could return the beating to us with) - Micro Mutants: Evolution (which was also a play-&-win game). Basically, this game is combat Tiddly-Winks. Each side has a set of plastic pieces with different powers. Each side has a base and the goal is to flip your pieces onto other pieces (if you cover them you take them out) and onto the other player's bases. That's really the gist of the game. However, its well done and pretty entertaining. I may have to find this for my kids (and me). We played in teams (Justin and I vs Team Jason) and we lost a fairly close match (but lose we did to the superior tiddly skills of Yennen).
After that, Justin, Jason, and I sat down and pulled out Lightning Reaction! We attracted a few onlookers, including Brian Gomez and Karen Zimmerli - both Omaha (Bellevue) gamers in town for the Con. After introductions (and a shock or two), we settled in for a game of Himalaya. I was glad to try this out with five, and found it to play just fine. Being the only experienced player didn't seem to matter much as everyone got the game quickly enough. However, I seemed to have a good run of luck in the game and nailed a number of larger deliveries which helped give me the win. The best part of the game though, was getting to go after Justin and placing a Yeti in his path right after he placed his special token to take any good from a village. Bwuuuhuhuhahahahahahahahaha.
After that, we followed up with a quick game of Escalation!. This little card game (and I'll quote Justin here) was probably thought up by Knizia in like 2 minutes. Whatever. Its fun and take no time to play - its a simple little filler. Brian managed to get a LOT of pass cards and Jason suffered for. Unsurprisingly, Brian won and Jason ended up in last.
Jason chose our next game - Manilla. This is a little race/wagering game that I will never play again with those DAMN EASLEYS. It was on the play-to-win table, so I agreed to try it out. Basically, you have an auction round, then three rounds of moving boats to get them across the finish line. Each round, you can put a guy on a boat, or on a spot on the board (paying the appropriate cost). Most of the board spaces are basically based on the odds (ie infrequent events cost less and payout higher). The exception to this being the two pirate spaces on the board (which were always taken by Justin and Jason, which might have made them the butt-pirate spaces). The pirate space is a longshot space (1 in 6 IF the boats aren't already past the finish after the first two movements) that pays out extremely well. Well, the dice (which were never my friend this weekend) loved those Easleys and boats landed in their hands time and time again. No less than five times (and twice it was two boats) in this game if I remember correctly. The dumbest action in the game and they cleaned up on it. Dumb dumb dumb!
We broke for dinner and were planning to play some Indonesia, but Jason left us for a couple of guys from Springfield, so Justin and I checked out Yinsh from the library and I taught him how to play. Apparently I taught him too well, because he waxed me in no time. We elected to play another quick two-player game and pulled out Battleline. I had never played with the tactics cards before, but they didn't seem to change the game a whole lot. I repaid Justin's previous win with a win of my own.
Justin then pulled out his Subbuteo game and we set that up to play. Being a spaz certainly didn't help my cause here, but we both had a pretty good time flicking and flicking and flicking. Soccer isn't normally my thing, but this was pretty fun. If Ashton or Ainsley (my kids) really gets into soccer, this might be worth trying to acquire. After about 20 minutes of flicking, Justin finally was able to get one by me for the 1-0 victory. The only issue we really had was that his mat was still slightly "ridged" from being folded. You almost need a special table to play this on.
We were getting tired and were trying to figure out what to play. Justin wandered off and came back telling me that there was a guy willing to teach us Agricola. Well, I couldn't pass that up. Our teacher ended up being Chad Krizan (chaddyboy_2000). Joining Justin and I was Timothy Hunt (Timotheous). Chad explained things and then let us alone to do our thing. We were playing the basic game, since this was an incomplete paste-up. Timothy seemed to have a great set of cards and dove right into nailing occupations left and right. My hands sucked and when I expanded my family, I ended up short of food within a round, costing me 9 points (ouch). I also blame Justin who kept stealing my fish. Now, don't get me wrong, I think there is a great game here, but I was a bit disenchanted with my one playing, given that my cards sucked so badly I couldn't recover. I was also out of gamer gas at this point and getting cranky. I will definitely try this again once I receive my printing from Z-Man, but never felt like I had to play this again over the weekend. And that wraps up day one for me

May 2008 Game of the Month

Ok, May was a sad sad month for playing games. One game night (5 games) and two online games of Patrician. Given that, Wabash Cannonball finally makes the game of the month. This is a short and yet fascinating economic game. If you haven't seen it, you aren't missing anything - it probably is the cheapest crappiest looking game I've ever been exposed to. It honestly looks like someone started selling their mock-ups of a game. In fact, I've never seen a game where at least 6 BGG'ers have made their own versions of the map (myself included). Once you get past the looks, you'll find a pretty good game. Its a stock manipulation game with an auction component. Its fast and there are lots of ways to make money and hose the other guys. The thing is - most of them are subtle. Subtle enough that I have not even come close to winning since my first game. I think most of that comes from always playing this with Mike Garrett and two other newbs. I'm more interested than ever to play this with a full complement of experienced players. And despite my losing ways, I can see the great game here and it is short enough I want to play it again and again.

Other games that make the list this month? Um... well, this was really the only good choice for me. In fact, of the games I played - I tried Bobbin' Bumblebee and wasn't impressed (its an ok kids game that is fun when all 4 players are in, but gets old when there is only 2 and can get tedious quickly despite being short). Patrician was ok, but suffers the same problems that another Michael Schacht game (Hansa) does - randomness can overtake skill and cause a better player to have no hope.

Game Night

May 17, 2008
Took me a little while to get around to this session report, but oh well. I had a few guys over to play a few games. Mike Garrett (MG) and his buddy Mike Linder (ML) stopped by, as did my friend John Davis from work. We started out playing a couple of quick games of Bobbin' Bumblebee - which is essentially a Loopin Louie clone (they even rip off the stupid spelling by not spelling out -ing instead using ng' ). The Mikes and I played one game with my wife before John got over (in a rare moment, Mike G was early). We started another game with John, which I had to cut short to chase my dog around the neighborhood after he escaped our yard. I had never played this nor the original, but I can see how its a semi-interesting kids game. Is this one I need to play with adults? Probably not. Don't get me wrong - there is some skill involved, but there are other short dexterity games I'd rather drag out.
After finding my dog, we settled down to play In The Year of the Dragon. I wanted to try grabbing the double dragon note to start the game, and both ML and I did so. However, I picked persons first and didn't choose very intelligently and then ended up playing LAST in nearly every round of the game. Our game was interrupted briefly as john had to run home to help his wife with their infant twins, but when we resumed, it looked as if it would be between ML and I. Unfortunately for me, ML was able to steal away the 6 points for fireworks (while the rest of us got NADA) in the last fireworks event which was all he needed to best my by 4 points. This game is really great, and I'd like to understand the strategies a little better. However, I think this one is going to play out a lot like Puerto Rico in that the starting choices will drive the game, and players familiar with it will get into a rut. As long as there is no computer game, I won't know this for a while, so I'll try and enjoy the game until then.
As I had mentioned, John had to leave briefly, so I thought this would be a good time to try out Big Three - a card game I've been reading about on Mark Hamzy's blog. Its most easily described as a three-player Tichu game, pitting one player against the other two. Its a pretty good three player game that is fast enough to almost be filler while waiting for a 4th player. There is no true ending so to speak, but I think I'd play again with each player having 20 points to start and ending when one player loses all their points. MG was leading in points after 3-4 hands when we stopped IIRC.
So, after our ItYotD game (that is annoying to type no matter what), we decided to play Race For the Galaxy something we had all played before. My enthusiasm for this game is waning a bit. As was typical, I got no synergy going with my cards early while MG did and after he'd played his third card I was already screwed. I hope the expansions offer some new playability to this game, but I'm not gung-ho like I was when this came out. Now, there is nothing wrong with this game (and it is still better than San Juan), but I think I'd really like to try out Glory to Rome because of the interactions between the players.
We then moved onto Wabash Cannonball. I have a love hate relationship with this game. I love it, but it is never good to me. It probably has something to do with playing with Mike Garrett, as we have played this together so often we just screw each other out the gate. This time, I was on the receiving end of most of that and I knew I was done before the first payout. STUPID GAME! I have started this game with nearly every company - the starting company seems to matter very little. The real action is what happens the first handful of actions. It is very easy to screw or be screwed right away. I think the biggest problem I've had thus far is that MG and I are usually the only two with experience, so we hose each other and the other players don't know enough to get in on the action, so one of us comes away pretty clean or we end up letting someone else get out in front of us. BAH!

Patrician

Got an email from Bobby Warren asking Mike Gingold, Jason Maxwell and I if we were interested in trying out Patrician via the Michael Schacht website (which uses the MaBiWeb interface). I hadn't even heard of the game before, so grabbed the rules and read through them (they were short). Basically, a bit of an area control game with a couple of twists. Our first game out I played a bit randomly, but was in good position at the end of the game only to finish a distant 2nd having lost points. Having learned a few lessons and understanding a bit more, I started a second game as a rematch and completely changed my approach. The second time, I played almost exclusively to get the cards I wanted, and concentrated less on the actual areas I was trying to get. In the end, that seemed to pay off with my just edging out Bobby for the win.

April 2008 Game of the Month

This month, the game of the month came down to two choices for me - one great game I finally got to put through its paces, and another that has now hit 20 plays on the year for me. I decided to give the nod to the Splotter beauty - Indonesia. Besides introducing us to Siap Faji, Indonesia is a really great economic/planning game. Its a game that plays out differently depending entirely on player choices. City locations, company growth and even player/company abilities earned through "research" will all conspire to make a fairly different experience each playing. The game itself isn't overly complicated to teach or learn, though understanding how all the moving parts will interact takes a little bit of playing. It is a bit on the long side and even with a group that knows what its doing, it still probably takes some time, as the game is fiddly - there is a lot to keep track of as players move their goods and earn money each turn during the operations phase.
As far as the game itself - the map is good sized, beautiful yet muted and is a pretty accurate representation of Indonesia - maybe too good, as some areas on the map are a bit tiny and even with the tiny goods chits, its easy to have a hard time figuring out where pieces reside on the board. I replaced the nice but far too large glass stones for cities with smaller ones to help with this issue. The chits are small, but are seriously the best tool for the job they play in the game - other bits would have been a hassle I think. I think they could have done something different with the ships, but that's a pretty minor quibble. Overall, the game and rules are pretty decent (though this game still is a bit pricey for what you get, but nothing you can do about that since its still an import).
I didn't even go into game play, but at its core, its a stock manipulation game with company mergers and such. Its a really good game with some interesting mechanics and I look forward to getting it to the table again (though I hope to do so with experienced players as inexperienced players could get steamrolled).

Rats!

John Davis stopped over for a mid-week gaming break last night. Having roughly and hour or so, I pulled out Notre Dame for the two of us to run through. having played before I had a slight advantage, though John picked up the essence of the game fast enough. Unfortunately for him, he got stagnated a bit in the middle of the game, running out of money and cubes. Recognizing that was going to happen to me, I had managed to grab a big chunk of cubes and cash to make it through the rest of the game. We each hit Notre Dame once, but I had managed to fill up my park fairly early and the bonus VPs push me out ahead at the end of the game by about 10 points. I'd really like to see this with three or four players, but its ok with two. After a second playing, I think I still prefer In the Year of the Dragon.

Warp

I received my copy of Bus today from the math trade. As you can see, the boards are a little warped. Ok, I've never seen anything like it. Even Lowneherz wasn't this bad. I've read about sticking warped boards in a ziplock with apple slices, stacking books on them, etc. These are so bad, I'd half consider just plain frame mounting them (I have a friend that does that for a living in Phoenix) so they'd be flat. Wow. The listing said the boards were warped, but this is crazy. The boards aren't even thin - which makes getting them back to almost flat even worse. I may have to try and scan them then make new ones :(

Game Night

"Let me explain something to you, Walsh. This business requires a certain amount of finesse." - Jake Gittes, Chinatown

Well, after many previous haulings, I finally brought out and played Chinatown (and now that the weather is nicer, maybe I can finally finish my payment to Mike Gingold for said game). I was joined by Mike Garrett, Justin Kosec, and another guy hanging out at the Game Shoppe, Mel. So, Chinatown is a negotiation game - fairly simple really. The board is divided into 6 buildings which are divided into areas of 12-15 spaces. Each space has a unique number from 1-85. On each turn, players are dealt a set of cards with lot numbers. They can pick from a subset of these cards and simply claim ownership of that lot. In the next phase, a random assortment of business tiles are given to the players. Then a negotiation phase, then placements of the businesses, and scoring. Businesses score based on their size and "completeness". Then repeat. After 6 rounds, the person with the highest score (money) wins. Pretty simple. During negotiations, everything can be traded - money, space, tiles, whatever. We started playing and after 3 turns, realized that the translated rules were in err, and had to restart (we ran out of tiles). At any rate, I squeaked out a win 171-168-168-126. So, I enjoyed playing the game (not just because I won), but here's my problem with negotiation games of this type - its technically "solvable". Here's what I mean. If you need my one space on the board to finish your business, I can see that you will make and addition [for example] 5000 each turn for the next 4 turns over what you would make without finishing. Meaning that at a minimum (there is possibility for bonuses, but I'll ignore that) giving you the space is worth 20k. Fine - pay me 10k and we're good. And that's what I mean by solvable. A good player is not going to just give up money/points to another player unless the deal is equitable. Since the equality is based in math, the deals (should) be zero sum. Which means - the winner is determined randomly based on the cards that come out and the tiles you get. And that's my biggest gripe with this type of negotiation game (for whatever reason, negotiations in wargames don't feel the same and I like that just fine). Mike says that Traders of Genoa is similar, but the information is a lot harder to track (in part because the game is longer). If anything though, I'm less inclined to play Traders than I was before. Chinatown is about the right length (for me) for this style of game, but is probably a once or twice a year game. **I just read that Z-Man games is producing the English release of this. Sounds like it'll get the nice Z-Man component treatment, but its going to be MSRP of $70!!!
After finishing up Chinatown, I pulled out In the Year of the Dragon. Sadly, it did not get played, as Mel took off, so Mike said he'd teach us how to eat poop - and by that I mean we played Primordial Soup. I had just purchased this, as Justin had called to let me know another local shop was having a 50% off sale. So I pulled it out, Justin set up the board, I started putting together the amoebas and Mike reviewed the rules. The rules are pretty straight forward. The complexity in the game lies in the gene cards, which give you abilities to "break" rules. The combinations that are available are enormous and what you take will depend in part on what the other players are doing. Since we had no clue (other than Mike), I played with my gut and roared out to a big lead. This of course prompted Mike to become "aggressive" and he started eating all my amoebas. Justin played steadily the whole way and managed to win by a couple points (I didn't score well at the end of the game as I couldn't keep my amoebas on the board). Not a bad little game, and I have the expansion, so I can get this to the board with up to 6 players. After playing, I thought maybe the game would be a bit long with 5 or 6, but the scoring is done where you basically ignore the spaces ahead of you where another player sits on the scoring track, so if you have 3 players ahead of you and you score a bunch of points, you "technically" gain 3 bonus points. This leapfrogging probably speeds things up quite a bit with more players.

Justin Sucks at Samurai (or - How I Miscalculated and Still Won)

A few days ago, Mike Garrett, Justin Easley and I started a game of Samurai on MaBiWeb. Justin was pretty aggressive towards the 3-totem city and the 2-totem city next to that, so we mostly left him to that. Mike floundered about most of the game with no clear direction and bad draws (though we all claim our draws sucked). I managed to get a number of pieces, though evenly between the three, and was worried I'd end up with lots of pieces and ZERO majorities. So, towards the end, I pushed to take all the hats. Now, in setting that up, I started looking at the remaining pieces and was pretty sure that Justin would kill us. Then near the very end, I thought we might tie. Sadly, Mike was forced into a king maker position. no matter how he played his last tile (because it would be his last tile), he determined the winner. I placed my last tile such that Mike's "best play" would be the one where he took a piece and thus gave me a piece as well (a hat). I then figured that Justin would end the game and we'd tie. However, I was wrong and won. We ended up with a tie with one majority each. We also tied on other pieces at 6 each. However, that last hat pushed me to a total number of pieces of 11 to Justin's 10. Mike's other move choices would not have netted him any pieces and Justin would have won. If this had been face to face, I think Justin and I would have been ok calling it a draw, but online all you can do is go with what the system tells you. It was a good game, but would have been better if Mike had "been in it".

Couple of Games

April 19, 2008 - Saturday
Mike Garrett came over after playing in a Bridge tourney all day. I pulled out Tumblin Dice since um... Well, it was still out on top of my last box of games. I showed Mike and after something like 9-10 rounds Mike beat me by 4 pts. Frankly, the game is pretty gay with 2 players. This is definitely a 4 (or more if you have lots of same sized/weight dice) player game. So anyway, after that we pulled out Notre Dame, which actually does play two-player. This is similar in many ways to In the Year of the Dragon (or vice versa). There are enough differences of course that they aren't the same game re-themed, but they scratch pretty much the same itch. I think ItYotD is probably the better game, but I'll reserve judgment until I play ND with 4-5 players. At any rate, in this version of the swim against the tide (tide of rats) game, I managed to not hit the max in rats and score ND twice all to myself. Mike lost points a couple of times, but was pulling the scores in with his park from very early on. It ended up being pretty close, but I squeaked out a 4 pt win.

Trades

Results from the "Pent-up Need to Trade"-trade are in. Looks like I got a lot of trading done this time. Traded these games:

La Strada --> Weapons and Warriors - Pirate Battle (I think this is for my son)

Torres --> Hare and Tortoise

Age of Steam --> Bus

Circus Maximus --> Medieval Merchant

The lone non-trading game? The Goodnight Moon game. Oh well. I'll probably look to ebay to sell that one. Age of Steam for Bus? Bus is OOP, and even if it wasn't, it'd be at least $75 to order (as closely as I can guess from Splotter's site). I don't feel too bad about that trade. I traded off Circus Maximus for a game that I'm pretty sure will see the table in the future: Medieval Merchant. So I'm ok with these results. I get rid of four games that were extra or not getting played for three games I want and one "toy". Actually not a bad result. I probably only would have been happier if I could have traded AoS for Antiquity, but since I'm moving back to AZ here, I should be able to play Antiquity with Mike G, so my intense need for that game can probably be put on hold for a bit.

Mykerinos

Just finished another online game of Mykerinos on MaBiWeb. this match was with Tammy Smolka, Bobby Warren, and Mike Gingold. I'm torn between liking this game and disliking playing it online. Without the continuous flow, I tend to "lose my place" when I'm playing this and I make dumb mistakes. Maybe its just me. At any rate, I was doing ok in this game. Then Bobby left for THE GATHERING. While there, he must have found his mojo, because he roared into the lead of the game, scoring a whopping 22 points in the final round. Final scores: Tammy: 37 - Charles: 45 - Bobby: 49 - Mike: 25

Samurai

So, I played a couple more games of Samurai with Justin Easley yesterday on MaBiWeb. He is convinced that the first player has an advantage in 2-player (mostly since I always go first and I always beat him). I had started a game hoping to pass the first turn to let him have the advantage, but you can't "not" play, so I still ended up first. I also took a random hand as a slight handicap (my random starting hand sucked BTW). This turned out to be one of the more interesting games I've played, as I managed to get the TOP SECRET WIN! You see, there is a little known rule (well, at least its not a common occurance, so it stays at the back of lots of player's minds) about ending the game after four pieces have been tied. Most players are too greedy to tie pieces so it doesn't happen often at all. However, in this game, I was able to win one piece out of the 3-totem city and tie the other two. My next turn, I tied another piece, making there 3 tied pieces and with me having two majorities. I vaguely warned Justin that I had just made the game very tense for him, but he did not understand the reference (probably thinking I was talking my normal smack). The next turn I was able to play my swap and my ronin and tie a 4th piece, suddenly ending the game "halfway" through. Justin was stunned (and vowed to use this new found power against another unsuspecting victim). Sorry Justin - I had been waiting and waiting to pull that trick off for a long time now, but I've never seen that many ties before...

So later that night, Justin pointed me to a new thread that had just popped up! MaBi added a new two-player starting player handicap system. The start player loses their 2-ship. Of course, we had to try it out. We fired up a game, and of course for the first time in about 8 plays, Justin got to go first!. I had again taken a random hand, and if possible, it was worse than the previous game's hand. At any rate, it was a close game - close enough that we finally tied. We'll get a few more of these in and see how much the start player matters with this handicap.

Indonesia

Early Game	Mid Game	End Game

Well, I finally got to play this cool Splotter game. Indonesia is an economics game where players grow good companies and shipping lines. Depending on the success of the companies, the cities around the companies can grow, allowing for more growth and so forth. The key "interesting" feature of this game is the merger mechanism, whereby a player can call for a merge of two companies (his own or otherwise) into a large single entity that anyone can bid for control of. Its a very interesting game that falls into the Age of Steam category of longer brain burner with lots of math - which doesn't make it sound fun, but its pretty good. In all fairness, its probably better than I'm thinking it is, but I've been playing a lot of econ games like this lately and I may have had my fill for a bit. Mike Garrett and I had been wanting to get this in for a few weeks now, so I invited some friends from work over - Steve Wicklund and John Davis. I went over the rules, which really doesn't take all that long. Since none of us had a clue, we jumped in and started playing. I grabbed a rice company, Steve a spice, Mike and John grabbed shipping companies and extra company slots were researched all around. It didn't take long to work out some of the dynamics of the game, and I'm interested to see this game in action again. In our game, the focus was on the individual companies and making cash for your own pile. As a result of this more singular focus, we only had one city ever grow in size until nearly the end of the game. In addition, Mike brought out a rubber company immediately in the B era, and it was in a place such that no growth was likely to happen anywhere. We also didn't have mergers until halfway through the game. Now, in fairness - the game was over after Mike created a Siap Faji (SEE-op fa-GEE) company (and no, it never stops being fun saying that). Because of our lateness is getting merger tech, nobody ever had the ability to merge more than two single companies. Mike's Faji was safe in his hand making money hand over fist. By the end of the game, Mike was so far ahead we had no hope of catching him. I eeked out 2nd place by a hundred or so over John and Steve. Mike had over 1700 (I had 1260). For some fairly simple mechanics and rules, there is a lot going on and a lot to take in. Its really a good game.
Now, being that this (and most Splotter games) have this notion of being "fiddly" I'll chime in on that. THIS GAME IS FIDDLY. Each shipping/operations phase takes a while to show where goods were delivered and to correctly pay the shipping companies. A calculator is really nice to have, even if you can do math in your head - its just faster as there is a lot of "un-intuitive" math involved (5/13 of 481 anyone?). Its not terrible, but its not fast either. I thought about it a bit, and I just don't see any real way to speed up the process. It is what it is. Also, you must have poker chips. A lot of them. At any rate, this is a pretty fun game overall and one I do want to play again.

A Week of Samurai

Justin Easley and I played a series of 5-games over the course of the week (ok, three, but I won 3 of 5 already).

Game 1: Fought over the 3-totem city right away and after spending a good amount of my 4-tiles, Justin came away with 2 of 3. I managed to work my way back in though and closed him out at the end of the game with a single piece more than he had 1-6-9 to 1-5-9. Super close game that came down to the very last tiles.

Game 2: Another game that ended closer than the game might have been. For the record - Justin wanted it noted that "I got lucky - again". I did not.

Game 3: The excuses keep rolling in... We didn't get this game in until late Thursday. We missed playing altogether on Wednesday. Justin again roared out and I came back to smoosh him at the end of the game. He believes that the player who goes first has an advantage. To prove/disprove this, I will let him go first from now on (passing if I actually go first).

Gaming

This weekend saw a lot of games being played. Friday started out with Justin Easley and I whipping through a quick two-player game of Samurai. I had a good run of tiles and never even used my Ronin. Two days later, Justin got revenge, beating Mike Garrett and I in a three-player match (in which I got completely schooled). Such is Samurai - I can only seem to get on track for one mode and tend to then get killed in the others (number of players).
Saturday, Steve Wicklund brought his two sons Chance (13) and Jeremy (10) over and another fellow from work, John Davis, joined us for an afternoon game of Descent: Journeys in the Dark. The boys had played, though not defeated the first scenario before. John hadn't played, so I started them on the first one (I being the Overlord). With semi-experienced players and an easy scenario they players didn't have much difficulty. I got a few kills in, but nothing to keep up with their gains. I forget how quick kids are - they remember everything and Steve's boys were very fast at counting - it was like they could tell you all the totals the second the dice stopped moving. Descent is a lot of fun anyway, but it was quiet a bit of fun playing with a couple of players that were VERY into the game. I'd love to show them a bunch of other games I know they'd love, but I'd hazard a guess that they will want to play Descent again if they come back (and that's ok).
Later that night, Mike Garrett stopped over and we got in a game of BattleLore - Mike being familiar with the basics of the system, prompted me to just start us on the first Lore scenario. Mike got an early lead, but I managed to fight back to make the game 4-5. Mike tried repeatedly to shoot down the last unit he needed for a win, but I lucked out and managed to stay in the game (on the same note, I must have hit his Cavalry with flags EVERYTIME I attacked - including a three flagger). I closed in on his guys to try and tie things up, but Mike finally landed the punch he needed to finish me off 6-4.
After that, we pulled out a couple of games that I had on my un-played list. The first was Terra Nova. This is an abstract with a very very thin theme tacked on about settling or some crap. Basically, the board is a hex map with different terrain types (could have been patterns, colors, whatever) under the hexes. First you place your meeples on the board (could have been colored stones or any marker). Then you take turns doing 3 things - moving guys and after moving one (or more), placing fences. When an area with 3 or less terrain types is sectioned off, the majority controlling player scores points based on the size of the area, with bonus multipliers for single or double terrain types. Pretty straight forward and nothing special, but I knocked it off the un-played list. Our major complaint? They short you meeples in two colors. If you play two player, you have to be red and yellow. Three players adds blue. You cannot be green unless you play 4-players. That's just retarded. Same thing that Pompeji did and it is still annoying. Anyway, I'm half interested in trying with three players, but won't be sad if I never do. I actually grok'd the game pretty quickly, but wasn't facinated enough to want to play again either (might have been my getting really tired). We finished up the night playing Zertz, which is part of the Gipf series of two-player abstract games. While I didn't hate it, it was not even close to being as good as Yinsh. Having only played two Gipf games (Yinsh and Zertz), I definitely rank Zertz as my second favorite of the series, but feel certain it will not be second after I try any of the others. Its not a bad game, but there wasn't anything special about it (I won too, so it wasn't even that I lost and hated it) It was even behind Terra Nova for abstracts, so there you have it. Thanks to Mike for helping me knock off a couple games.

Samurai

Mike Garrett, Justin Easley and I finished up a game of Samurai on MaBiWeb yesterday. After our (Mike and I's) bout of two-player games I thought I'd get another target involved. This time out, I jumped at the three totem city and everyone left me to get it on my own. Mike nailed the island to the South while Justin spread himself out waiting for his opportunity. I managed to suck up a number of pieces, and Mike caught up eventually. Then Mike threw out a 4-rice against the 3-totem city I'd been working on since I didn't have any rice support. However, through clever play on my part (read: luck) I was able to do a swap that hosed Justin and got me a rice to replace the one I'd lose in the big city. At that point I had two majorities to Mike's one. As the game approached the end, Justin and I looked at the board and what was left and we figured that Mike had one move left that could earn him a tie with me. I had to hope he didn't see it, and turned out he just missed it - he swapped the right piece, but threw it in the wrong spot, giving me the ability to close out the game. Final scores (majorities - others - totals:
Mike: 1 - 4 - 8
Charles: 1 - 5 - 10
Justin: 0 - 8 - 8

Hansa

I got invited to join a game of Hansa on MaBiWeb. After getting burned out a bit on this last year I had avoided this one, but decided to suck it up and play again. It ended up being a three player game with Rob and Jason Easley, and I was able to jump out to a good lead. Rob caught up quickly enough and I was unable to shake him. I also had one point in the game where probably should have let the game go and take my chances, but didn't and it cost me the game. This is why Hansa doesn't rate higher for me - one person always seems to be on the short end of the stick, and then a nice tight game comes down to luck of the draw on the last stack. If the game was longer, I'd rate it lower, but since this is short, its ok. At any rate, Rob played a decent game and deserved the win - Jason was the guy that got the short end of the stick this time around.