July 14, 2010

Participants: Jon, Elijah, Nadine, Max, Sergei, Alona, Miriam, Eitan, Emily

Being the nine days, I wasn't sure if anyone would come. Gili was probably recovering from the bat mitzva of her daughter. Also, I sadly must report that Abraham and Sara will be leaving Jerusalem soon, and also that Miriam is going back to the states in a week or two.

Dominion/Intrigue/Seaside

Nadine 41, Elijah 37, Jon 33

Kingdoms: Chapel, Throne Room, Gardens, Laboratory, Baron, Conspirator, Torturer, Upgrade, Harem, Tactician

This looked like a nice set, and I should have done fine. Unfortunately, I had the worst luck ever known to man with my card drawing. I bought an early Chapel and did not once get it together in my hand with an Estate. Not once. (In retrospect, I should have just trashed the four coppers, rather than trash one and buy a Silver.)

I bought Throne Room and only twice pulled it together with another action card, and that was Torturer, both time near the end of the game. It was a freaking nightmare. I really wanted to play the same set again, but other people came in the meanwhile.

Nadine avoided most of the kingdoms, bought Silvers and Harems, and did just fine.

Eitan 42, Emily 38

They played this when they came late and waited for others to finish longer games.

Antike

Jon 8, Elijah 6, Max, Sergei

First plays for Max and Sergei. I warned them several times to keep track of points and go for them, rather than mess around with armies and battles, but in vain. Still, they really liked the game. I started with marble, while all the other guys started with iron. I also had a slight advantage in starting off in the corner (Phoneticians), though all the other players moved in my direction and boxed me in.

Princes of Florence

Nadine+, Miriam, Alona

First play for Alona, and possibly for Miriam as well. No surprise that Nadine won, but she says the game was close.

Tigris and Euphrates

Jon 5/5/5/9, Eitan 5/5/5/7, Elijah 4/5, Emily 2

Another game I don't get to play often enough. First play for Eitan and Emily, and a reminder to Elijah who had played once. I set up a few monuments mid-game, giving dozens of green points to Elijah and blue and black points to me. I didn't care about the green points, because I knew Elijah had plenty of them already, anyway.

I won mostly because I ended the game on my turn.

Cuba

Max, Sergei, Alona, Nadine, Miriam

First plays for everyone but Nadine. Unfortunately, the game went slowly and it was late, so I had to kick them out after round 3.

May 12, 2010

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Ksenia, Abraham, Sara, David, Gili, Eitan, Emily

Ksenia was able to join us again, for once. I think she was inspired after having won In the Shadow of the Emperor on shabbat. Also nice to see Sara coming more regularly.

Dominion/Intrigue/Seaside

Jon 51, Ksenia 41, Nadine 32

Scores approximate. First play of Dominion for Ksenia. Both Nadine and Ksenia started on VPs a tad too early, imho. We played with the Seaside Village that give +3 actions and +2 gold which is incredibly under-priced at a measly 3 cost. Tack on some card drawing cards (such as Nobles) and the play was pretty straightforward. Ksenia also took a Sea Hag, who was a minor annoyance since there were no cards that trashed other cards.

Dvonn

Abraham+, Sara

This may have been Sara's first play. Abraham won by a good margin.

Trias

Jon 31, Sara 30, Abraham 27

First plays for Abraham and Sara. Trias is one of those games that I love to pieces but don't get to play much because the older regulars in the group don't like it that much. Luckily, Abraham and Sara and Eitan and Emily are relative newcomers and so I can inflict these games on them at least once.

Also, Abraham is closer to my own feelings regarding which games he likes, and so he tends to like the games I like. He's willing to play Santiago, for instance.

Abraham and Sara both loved Trias, so I'm thrilled. It didn't take them long to get the hang of the basics, so most of the game was spent on tactics. Abraham managed to leach hex after hex away from other islands onto one on which he was alone, and the end scores were close. But he wasn't quite diverse enough, and I managed to end with control of a 12 hex island, which just edged me into first place.

Cuba

Nadine 80, Emily 79, Ksenia 67

First plays for Ksenia and Emily. Nadine started teaching a different group of people, but people showed up during the explanation, thought of joining and then some of them split off to start another game. I only played Cuba twice, and while I like it, I find the horizontal/vertical building activation mechanic on the players' boards annoying.

In this game, according to Nadine's notes: Nadine changed sugar into rum and shipped, Emily got money and had both shipping and building, and Ksenia had a blue stone and changed to VPs, but didn't do it every turn.

Taj Mahal

David 53, Gili 53, Eitan 44

This was formed from the overflow of Cuba. First play for Eitan. A tie for David and Gili.

Reef Encounter

Abraham 38, Jon 31, Sara 24

Sara's score is approximate. First play for me.

Some have compared Reef Encounter to Tigris and Euphrates or Go. Tom Vasel even claimed that once you have Reef Encounter, you can trade away T&E. While I've only played one game, so far it appears that nothing could be further from the truth. The only thing that RE and T&E share are the player screens and the tiles.

It's certainly a pretty and colorful game, and the theme is fresh and interesting. It's a good game, with quite a lot of depth to be explored. I enjoyed it fine, and will play again. But it's no T&E.

Not simply because it wasn't as good as T&E, which it wasn't. But because the strategies and tactics are so different from each other, it's like comparing apples and Chevies. They're simply different games, plain and simple.

In RE, the object is to collect tiles of high value. You collect tiles by starting your turn with one of your markers on an area containing five or more tiles of the same color (you collect N-4 tiles from a reef that you eat). The values of the tiles are partially under your control during the game, though the values only matter at the end of the game. Each tile of a color will be worth between 1 to 5 points at the end of the game. So, in addition to your having to collect the tiles, you have to spend some time locking high values onto the color tiles that you are collecting.

The same part of the board that controls the end values of the tile colors also controls which colors are "dominant" during game play. When one color is dominant over another, tiles of the dominant color can be used to kick tiles of the recessive color (replace them) off the board. You can use then use the tiles that you kick off the board to control the tile values/dominance, or you can place them back on the board later.

At the end of each round, you get some more tiles from random piles, as well as a "control cube" - you spend a control cube on a color each time you want to place one or more tiles of that color.

Lastly, you have four markers, which sit on reefs and protect the spaces immediately orthogonal to them from being eaten by other colors, regardless of which color is dominant. Add to that some wacky board geometry, and you spend a lot of your time trying to figure out where the best place on the board is to grow your reefs so that they can get big before you eat them - and without other people's tiles eating yours before you can harvest them.

In our game, both Sara and Abraham had large reefs that they ate, but Abraham got the colors locked in his favor. I had the choice on the last round which way to swing one of the tiles, and I swung it in favor of Abraham because I thought Sara had eaten more than Abraham had in his color specialty. Turns out I was wrong. If I had chose the other way, Abraham would have had 8 less points, and Sara 8 more points, and I would still probably have lost by a point or two.

R-Eco

David 16, Gili 15, Eitan 5

Also first play for Eitan, which surprised me.

Tichu

Jon/David 515, Nadine/Ksenia 385

First play for Ksenia. This did not start out well for us.

In the first round, they both went out first. The next round we gained 15 points to their 85. The third round we split 50/50. David and I had crappy hands all three times.

Finally I got a decent pull and I called Grand Tichu (2 aces, 2 kings, Phoenix, jack, and 2 nines). It wasn't a cakewalk, but I made it, plus another 50/50 break. We were still losing, and Nadine wanted to quit while they were ahead. I coerced her into playing one more round, in which David and I both went out. David went out first, and Nadine was on my right with only one card. And I had several cards and the Dog. Luckily, Nadine's card wasn't higher than a jack, and I was able to slowly play through all my cards and exit with the Dog.

February 24, 2010

Participants: Nadine, Gili, Abraham

First of three game nights at Nadine's while I'm in the US. Session report by Nadine:

Gili and Abe arrived at about the same time.

David & Goliath

Abraham+, Gili, Nadine

Gili+, Abraham, Nadine

Abe had never played David and Goliath so we played two games. Abe won the first one by a lot, Gili won the second one.

Cuba + expansions

Abraham 73, Nadine 70, Gili 70

Then we played Cuba with the expansion buildings. Abe bought one of them on the first round, that lets you trade 5 different non-cube things for 9 points. I had the sugar-rum-points buildings.

Abe had a lot of money and cubes, he won the political influence every round except the last two. The second to last round Gili won and selected the card that lets you only produce one resource, so Abe couldn't get the resources to use the building, so he didn't use it all game. The market had been cleared out by political cards. He was able to ship, and still won.

Final score Abe 73, me and Gili tied at 70, I had two coins. We had talked about her keeping a coin for a tie breaker during the bidding, but she wanted to select cards. We could have each done a few things differently.

The game seems very well balanced because it's usually close at the end, after my two games. It's fun, not too long, with interesting choices that seem to matter though almost all my choices were worth 2 points. Abe beat me in number of useless cubes.

January 27, 2010

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Gili, Binyamin, Avi K, Eitan, Emily, David K

A bustling night, though only seven of us were here. We played some meaty games and then looked up and it was a quarter to midnight.

Homesteaders

Gili 68, Binyamin 53, Jon 39

Binyamin wanted to learn how to play this. Second play for me, third for Gili. I played by instinct again; last time my instinct served me well. This time it didn't.

Last time I started pulling in early steel and trad chips, and that gave me access to many other good buildings mid-game. This time I didn't go steel, and I had more competition for the buildings. I kept settling for whatever came my way. I still made that work efficiently, but I wasn't raking in points like Gili was, or goods like Binyamin was.

My biggest mistake was forgetting that gold disks were the equivalent of 5 silvers as far as money goes. I didn't notice that the gold that Binyamin was producing was essentially giving him lots of extra cash to outbid me; instead I was stuck with buildings that gave two silvers, which, while it looked nice, wasn't enough.

Gili once again beat me to the mid-game 10 point building. Binyamin ended with 8 workers.

Robo Rally

Avi K, Nadine

Says Nadine: Avi did very well, planning correctly on his own, even on a track moving off the edge of the board. He won, one board, one-way.

R-Eco

Nadine 23, Avi 15

Scores approximate. Says Nadine: I won, he got the no pollution bonus.

Steam

Jon 35, Eitan 33, Nadine, Emily

Scores approximate. First play for all of us, although I'd played Age of Steam three or four times before. I read the rules while we set up.

One change from Age of Steam is that the components are more attractive; AoS had that old wargamey cardboard and black text look and feel. The biggest changes are in the income/share calculations and the cube distribution, both of which have been streamlined and simplified.

Income/Stocks: Each player starts with no cash and at 0 on the income track. Every space you move back on the income track gives you $5. Every time you deliver a cube, you get 1 bonus/link. Each bonus can be spent on either moving forward on the income track or moving forward on the victory point track. At the end of each round, you have to pay if you're negative on the income track, or you gain income if you're positive on the income track. Simple as that.

For the first few rounds, we all went negative and back up to 0 or -1. For the rest of the game, we hovered around the -1 to +2 area of the track. I'm sure the match could tell you if it's worth it to simply go high up the income track so you don't have to keep spending a bonus or two there each round.

The only other thing to note is that, at the end of the game, you get +1 VP/+2 on the income track, or -2 VP/-1 on the income track.

The cubes. At the start of the game, a bunch of piles of three cubes each are place on the side of the board. Every time someone takes "city growth", which costs $2, they can take one of the piles and place it onto any city that hasn't already had a city growth. Also, any time someone takes "urbanize", which costs $6, they can take one of the piles and put it onto the new city, which can't have any city growths after that.

Straightforward, no dice rolling, no surprises when you draw cubes from the bag. All the randomness is done before the game starts. There are no random elements in play during the game.

Another change: you don't bid for turn order. Each special ability if numbered. Holder of the lowest value from the previous round selects a new value first, followed by second lowest, etc.

Otherwise, it's the same basic game: acquire special ability and turn order card, build tracks and pay for them, run cubes, collect income or pay debt. Repeat 8 times (in a four player game). The rules about building track are still pretty difficult to explain, but the game flows smoothly.

It's still a great game. I definitely thought I was losing, but I had the most tracks on the board and so caught up in the final scoring. I also had some late 5 to 6 point cube runs.

Eitan was the first to get to 6 on his railroad track, but he seemed to be taking mostly 3 or 4 point runs, or 6 point runs that gave 2 points to Nadine. Nadine didn't get beyond two on the railroad track for most of the game, but she delivered two cubes over two links nearly every round.

The major problem with this game, and it's probably true of Age of Steam as well, though for some reason it never bothered me in that game, is the ability - necessity - to give points to other players, and to choose whom to give them to in the process. Scores are sufficiently low that this introduces a strong element of kingmaking into the game, and it's blatant and unfortunate. Plus, as Nadine says, giving points to other players is simply a "not fun" mechanic.

I'm definitely happy to play more times, but this does bug me.

Cuba

Binyamin, Gili, David K, Avi K

First play for all but Gili, second play for her. She had trouble explaining it, so Nadine gave a lot of attention to their game (instead of ours), but I don't think it helped them much.

Nevertheless, Binyamin liked the game. David misunderstood one of the tiles and played wrong because of that. I think this contributed to his feeling that the game was only "ok".

December 16, 2009

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Gili, Abraham, Emily, Eitan

Hanukkah gaming.

Hare and Tortoise

Abraham+, Nadine, Jon, Gili

I started us off with this little guy. First play for all of us. I understood that this is supposed to be a kids' game, really, which is true if you consider the graphics. But it's more intelligent that any mainstream roll and move game, and challenging enough for adults.

This is a race game where the object is to be the first to cross the finish line. There's dice rolling, but not for movement; it's for the results of what happens when you land on certain spaces. You move 1, 2, 3, ... spaces by expending 1, 3, 6, ... carrots. So your job is to find ways to acquire more carrots for more movement, as well as rid yourself of three lettuces and block the spaces your opponent's require (only one rabbit per space). It's a lot of jockeying for position; last place gets bonus carrots on several occasions. It's even nicely thematic.

Fun game for a filler, or with kids.

Cuba

Abraham, Jon, Nadine, Gili

First play for all of us. Nadine had gone home with the game to learn the rules and gamely tried to explain them to us, but I had to take over after confusion reined.

Cuba is a meaty Euro, a little simpler than Puerto Rico but in the same vein. The problem is that every game that tries to be in the same vein as Puerto Rico but simpler ends up being unfavorably compared to Puerto Rico. Cuba is no exception.

You've got a few dozen different VP paths, and every building is available for purchase at the beginning of the game, which makes the first few games an exercise in figuring out how the parts of the game mesh together. We all scored pretty closely.

Nadine is under the impression that further games are also going to score closely, so long as people with the same experience levels play each other. This may be true, or it may be that a few good plays can score a wild swing in the points during one or two turns. We just don't know yet. In any case, experienced players should certainly do better than non-experienced ones. Abraham also liked it, but less than he liked some other new games.

I enjoyed the game, and I look forward to studying it more.

Amyitis

Eitan, Emily

Unfortunately for these two, they came when we were starting Cuba, and so tried to play Amyitis on their own, including learning it on their own. I had played it once, but didn't remember enough to teach it.

They weren't thrilled with it, claiming that certain things don't seem to work well. I'm pretty sure that they must have gotten something wrong. I remember liking it when I played it (enough to buy it) although I do recall that one of the cards was somewhat better than the others, and so the number that appeared each round had a strong effect on one's success.