March 05, 2008

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Yitzchak, Gili, David, Yardena, Yedidya, Yitzchak the Smaller, Binyamin, Ben, Dylan

I'm back in Israel. Yardena is a great friend of mine and Rachel's from when I first moved to Israel; she also worked with Rachel on occasion. She brought two of her children, Yedidya and Yitzchak the Smaller, in search of better games.

Before the Wind

Binyamin 50, Nadine 44, Jon 36

I played this game at the BGG.con. I really liked it; it's sort of a card game version of the shipping part of Puerto Rico. Let's call it San Juan II.

When I played it at the con, we played incorrectly so that the core action distribution rules seemed broken. But even as we were playing it, we knew that it shouldn't work that way, and we were right.

It's very different from our typical Eurogames. It's very interactive. The action distribution has a very strong take-that mechanism; but unlike other games with take-that mechanics, it doesn't feel like the game is brought down by it. That's because there are too many things that you need to do at the same time, so you can't spend all your time hosing other people.

It's very challenging to move forwards when people are arrayed against you, but they are also not moving forwards when this is happening and you can work that into your game play. It's challenging and fun.

I seem to be pretty bad at it, which is all the more challenging for me. David sat beside me as I played, and he immediately noticed some of my major goof-ups as the game went on, such as trying to by Binyamin's card which I couldn't afford instead of trying to buy Nadine's which I could have.

Ben sat in at the beginning of the game but immediately decided that the game was not for him when we started playing.

Settlers of Catan

Ben+, Yardena, Yedidya, Yitzchak the Smaller

So Ben went to teach these guys how to play their first Eurogame. They had a good time, and promised to come back, even though Ben beat them (stealing Longest Road, I believe). Yedidya actually looked more interested in playing the Arkham Horror game which was going on.

Arkham Horror

Yitzchak, Gili, Dylan, Jon (sort of)

Yitzchak was trying to get a group to play this for sometime, and we finally agreed if it was the shortest boss-guy. It only took three hours and a bit, which included some explanation to Dylan and Gili.

I was allegedly playing as well. However, I couldn't start until my Before the Wind game finished, which ate into about an hour of game time. And then I called myself away to play Blue Moon with Ben who would otherwise have had no one to play with after only twenty minutes or so.

Yitzchak didn't seem to mind, as he had played the game solitaire a number of times and could easily play my character at the same time. In fact, even when I was playing, I wasn't doing much. I made a decision as to move or attack, but otherwise rolled some number of dice when I was told to and how many.

Which is my problem, really. In order to know what to do, you need a vast knowledge of how the game works, and you have to remember at every stage what modifiers are in effect on every card in play around the entire table. This is laborious and probably no one has ever played a game without forgetting something or messing something up.

And in the end, you're rolling a lot of dice, which is exciting and fun, but not very much in the thinking department. You roll well you succeed, you roll poorly you don't. I can't see that there's much difference between good play and slightly better play. Obviously, it helps to maximize your dice chances. I think I'm just not cut out for this type of game anymore.

Blue Moon

Ben, Jon

I taught this to Ben. he took the Vulcas and I took the Hoaxes. We worked through our decks trading battles back and forth. I managed to get up three dragons near the beginning of the game, but I then lost them. After that, Ben got and lost one dragon a few times until the game's end, which was a tie. We started another game, but abandoned it midway.

Many people think that I gave Blue Moon a short shrift in my BGG review because I said it was basically a typical Knizia number game with special ability cards added for flavor. The special ability cards do more than add flavor, complained they, as they add all of the tactics.

I don't deny this, even though it doesn't really change what I said. It's still a dry kind of number game. Though numbers figure into Magic, too, Magic doesn't feel like a number game. It feels much more like a sorcery combat game.

One thing that probably improves Blue Moon after several plays is getting to know your deck. In that way, you're no longer doing what's best for each battle, one after the other, but able to plan ahead to future battles. The name of the game is not to win a particular battle, but to win four more than your opponent or to be ahead when the game ends. Which adds a lot to the strategy.

Race for the Galaxy

David 43, Binyamin 42, Nadine 33

I didn't get to see this, known as San Juan III, but Nadine said it had even less interaction than San Juan. I hear that as you get to know the game better, your role selection choice becomes more interactive, so we can reserve judgment. They liked it, however, so we'll try it again.

Magic: the Gathering

David++, Jon

David and I dealt out 68 cards each from the new card I brought home. I crafted a neat deck with nearly all Elves and Shapeshifters (G with B and R). It was pretty cool, but it wasn't as strong and David's deck (U and G). So I lost, as usual.

Bridge

Yitzchak, Ben, Nadine, Binyamin

These guys seem to like getting all the other games out of the way so that they can end the evening with this.

January 16, 2008

Participants: Jon, Binyamin, Nadine, Ben, Yitzchak, Gili, Cliff, Raphi

Nadine invited Cliff, who lives in our area. Strange that he's never come before, as he has experience with many Euro and war games. Not only that, but he brought his daughter Raphi who also plays. Hopefully, they will begin coming often. (Nadine says that he has four children and thought the game night ended earlier, which is why he hasn't come sooner.)

Blue Moon

Binyamin+, Jon

I took out Blue Moon to learn how to play it. As I read the rules, I began to get a sinking feeling.

I like Knizia's board games, but I find his card games to be too simplistic. Lost Cities, Flinke Pinke, and so on are clever and diverting enough for a child, but not for me. They are basically number games; throw the numbers around and hope to end up with the right ones. The decisions are usually fairly trivial and entirely too mathematical.

I honestly expected Blue Moon to be something entirely different, given its rich theme and comparison to Magic-lite. Yet, upon reading the rules, it became clear that this was just one more game of numbered cards and little else.

To make matters worse, the price of the game was inflated, as often happens, with fancy bits of useless pieces; it's a card game, and could be sold for four dollars if created simpler. To make matters even worse, the pictures on the cards are horribly sexist and borderline pornographic. This is a common complaint about the game, but it's still true.

Nevertheless, I gamely decided to try it out with Binyamin, looking at the rules as we played. We played around halfway through one game until wee essentially got the rules, and the restarted a fresh game.

Thankfully, the game turns out to be better than expected. Far better than Lost Cities, anyway.

Each round, you must place a creature or withdraw from the battle. If not withdrawing, you can also play a booster card on your creature or a support card. Any creature you play next round covers up any previous creatures and boosters that you've already played.

Each creature and most support cards have two sets of numbers on them: fire and earth. The first person to start a battle decides which number will be used for comparison during this battle. Every time it's your turn to play, you can only play if the relevant number of the creature you put down plus support cards will at least tie the corresponding total of your opponent.

Some cards have special abilities that boost the numbers of other cards or cancel cards of your opponents, so long as they're in play and uncovered.

So the essential mechanic is: if you put down your high card first, your opponent might withdraw and you'll win. But if he can answer your card, you will have to cover over your creature with another one which might be lower, in which case you would have to withdraw. So you might be better off placing a lower card first, rather than a higher one, saving your higher one for when you really need it. Or something like that.

After every battle, the person who won gets one or two points and all cards played are discarded. The game ends when someone has three more points than his opponent and is about to get his fourth. Otherwise, when someone runs out of cards, the score at the end of the game is your point differential over your opponent. Play a number of games until one person has won five points.

It's an ok game. There is unexplored tactics and strategy still to discover, which I'll happily do when I play again. The real interest in the game appears to be in buying the expansion sets and then creating decks, ala Magic.

Mr Jack

Jon (Criminal)+, Binyamin (Detective)

Binyamin wanted to see how to successfully play Criminal. Unfortunately for him, he left everyone in the dark at the end of round three, and it was then possible for me to escape at the beginning of round four.

I've come to appreciate the possibility of Criminal to win by simply not trying to escape. It's more of a puzzle than a game. And it's a bit frustrating that your strategy is entirely dictated by the card flips. If they flip one way, you have to do this, and if they flip the other way, you have to do that. It's a nice game, however.

El Grande

Nadine 132, Yitzchak 117, Ben 113, Gili 96

A high scoring game, as you can see. Nadine ended up ahead by the end of round three, and so it was expected that she would win by the end of the game, as she usually does. And so she did.

Round three scores: Nadine 52, Yitzchak 38, Gili 34, Ben 31
Round six scores: Nadine 86, Ben 74, Yitzchak 72, Gili 59

Magic: the Gathering

Binyamin+, Jon

This is rather pathetic. Binyamin and I Rochester drafted with some of my new cards. I ended up with a far, far, far superior deck of white flyers and tons of red direct damage. Binyamins was a basic hodgepodge of creatures. I lost the one game we played because I didn't draw a red land until I was down to 6 points, and my non-land cards were all red. Pure mana screw.

We didn't have a chance to play another game.

Power Grid

Cliff 11+, Jon 11-, Binyamin 11--, Raphi 10

I taught them this game, as it's a good game to get into for people who already know some gaming. We played on the easy US Eastern seaboard. I pretty much started out well and stayed that way.

I decided to end the game by building six cities right before Stage 3 started, as I had a reasonable hope that I would win on money anyway. Binyamin, Cliff, and I could all power 11, and Raphi could only power 10. But I had lots more money. Still, at th end, I was left with 30 and Cliff still had 49 or so.

If I had waited one more round, it would have come down to auctioning over the three 6 city power plants that were available. And that meant leaving my fate into the hands of others' possibly irrational actions.

Bridge

Ben, Jon, Binyamin, Yitzchak, Nadine

Binyamin and I both took up hands during Power Grid with the other three players.