October 19, 2008: Games Day

Participants: David, Avi (David's son), Mace, Shachar (Mace's son), Koby, Gili, Jon, Gilad, Nadine, Elijah, Binyamin, Rivka (B's wife), Tikva Shira (B's kid), Zvi Yehuda (ditto), Devora (ditto), Iska (ditto), Adam, Amir, Omri, Roee, Rudo, Yosef, Michael (Elijah's dad), Saarya, Rachel

A pleasant games day. Amir, Omri, Roee, Rudo, Gilad, and Koby all came from the coastal areas, which was nice.

We used both sukkahs, and sometimes had to look for extra chairs. At night, we also had to find a light for the other sukkah and finally managed to get it plugged in.

I took notes of the games played, but worse notes than usual, and I fear I might have missed a game or two. Here's what I got:

Cosmic Encounter

Mace+, Shachar, Elijah, Binyamin, Adam

I think that was the list. Several of these were new players, yet they still played a six player game, double powers, comets and asteroids, and what looked like half the flare deck.

Mace got to four bases fairly quickly as Prophet / Loser, but was then ganged up upon. The game then extended for another three and a half hours, until Mace finally managed to win in the end, anyway. Other powers in the game included Pentaform, Vampire, Plant, Mirror, and others.

For Sale

Binyamin and family played this.

Go

Adam 38, Michael 24

This took them a while on a full board. Michael is somewhat better than I am, and so proved a closer match for Adam.

Kingsburg

David 45, Gilad 44, Gili 39, Koby, Nadine

Koby brought this game and taught it to the others.

Lo Ra

This is Nadine's Jewish themed version of the game Ra. Played in the other sukkah.

Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation

Adam (dark)+, Binyamin (white)

Frodo was stomped to death by the Balrog while trying to pass through Minas Tirath.

Zvi Yehuda wanted to play this later in the day, but no one had time to explain the English to him.

Louis XIV

Michael 52, Yosef 51, Elijah 49

First plays for all of them, they all really liked it. Good thing we still have Nadine's copy around. It may see more play again.

Magic: the Gathering

David+, Jon

David and I got one draft and game in, and e beat me as usual, even though I played a four color deck and wasn't mana screwed, and he played a three color deck and was.

Mission: Red Planet

Rudo 54, Omri 47, Jon 36, Nadine 23

This is an are control game from Bruno Faidutti, and has his characteristic elements of chaos and bluffing. Which, unfortunately, I don't like, although I like Bruno Faidutti.

You have ten rounds, scoring after rounds 5, 8, and 10. You have four ships active at any one time going to 10 different areas of Mars, and holding between 2 to 5 astronauts. And you have 9 character cards, that let you a) add astronauts to one or two ships, and b) do a special action, including moving your astronauts, swapping an astronaut, and redirecting or blowing up a ship. The latter two, in particular, are the most chaotic parts.

Lastly, you have bonus points for a mission, or can put secret cards under many of the areas, so that, at the end of the game, that area scores nothing, or double, or gives some other random bonus. More chaos.

Each round, each player selects one of their characters and then turns it over in turn order, like Citadels. You only get your cards back if you play character 1.

Nadine and I lost mostly because we didn't understand the vast importance of the areas with more points, which exponentially accumulate in latter scoring rounds (I somehow thought they would be linear). So we didn't fight for them more.

It's not a bad game, and certainly not as annoying as Assassin, but I still screwed Nadine out of her moves twice at the beginning of the game, which was probably not enjoyable for her.

And there's no reason for it. If the cards are played like El Grande, instead of like Citadels, and if the cards placed on regions are placed open instead of closed, the game looks to be vastly more fun and interesting.

Mr Jack

Nadine (Detective)+, Jon (Criminal)

I survived with three suspects until round 8. I only had an unseen Jack in one round, and Nadine had to ensure that I didn't escape, preventing her from discovering anyone that turn.

Nadine then accused the right person, and not entirely at random. One of the three she had eliminated with a card from the red guy. And one of them she thought I had been positioning more for exit than the other.

Notre Dame

Yosef+, Gili, Saarya, +/Jon

I took over for someone in round four, but I forget who.

Power Grid

Shachar 17, Jon 16, Elijah 15++, Avi 15+, Mace 15-

We played on the German map, missing the south coast. Aside from the western area, prices were pretty expensive. All of us except for Mace started on the western shore, anyway.

Larger plants came out fairly early, and I snagged my entire plant needs before anyone else. Still, because I was behind in cities, I was producing less money, and so everyone else managed to catch up with their plants and building. In the end, I simply couldn't build more than Shachar owing to less cash. I'm still not quite sure how that worked.

Elijah and Mace were up to 14 cities when we were all at 12 on the last round. They had a bidding war over the only plant that would let one of them win, but it went too high for either the winner or loser to win. If it hadn't Elijah could have won after all.

Puerto Rico

Rachel 64, Jon 58+, Adam 58-, Nadine 56

Rachel was convinced she wasn't going to win when Nadine and I took second big buildings and Adam secured her first. She and Adam both had Harbors to Nadine and my Factories. But she played on anyway, taking a Discretionary Hold, something I probably should have taken.

It was all very close, but Rachel managed to ship 43 shipping points to my 21. Yowza.

Race for the Galaxy

Nadine 54, Gilad 40, Roee 29

First play for Roee.

R-Eco

David 12, Avi 7, Mace 7, Shachar 2, Koby -1

The opening game. Played again at least once later during the day.

Samurai

Zvi Yehuda 9++, Binyamin 9+, Amir 9-, Adam 8

No further info.

Settlers of Catan

Yosef 13, Elijah 6, Gili 5

Yosef won every game he played tonight, I believe. They played to 13, but it didn't help.

Shadows Over Camelot

Zvi Yehuda, Tikva Shira, Omri, Roee, Rudo, Avi

First plays for all but the first two, I taught them and then hovered around a bit to help them start. Luckily, Nadine was also sitting nearby and could fill them in on a few rules that I forgot, as well as help Avi on his first game.

Taj Mahal

Yosef 65, Gili 59, Elijah 28

First play for Yosef. Nadine and I looked over in mid-game, and Gili had a 20 point lead. We said that they should just concede, although Yosef did have a handful of cards.

Well, it seemed that Yosef was more persevering than we realized, making a dramatic comeback.

Tower of Babel

Yosef, Rivka, Devora, Iska

First play for Yosef, and Devora and Iska are very small kids, so I'm sure they weren't experienced players. I don't know any more about the game.

Ubungo

Rivka, +, +

Rivka played this shape game with two of her kids.

Year of the Dragon

Nadine 128, David 108, Gili 102, Gilad 81, Koby 72

First plays for Gilad and Koby.

Omri 107, Nadine 105, Rudo 102

First plays for Omri and Rudo.

May 30, 2007

Participants: Jon, David, Nadine, Elijah, Zack, Jack, Binyamin, Gili, Adam, Tal

Game night was interrupted for a half hour by a visit from Kindershpiel's representative, delivering a few boxes of different versions of Apples to Apples to me, to assist me in my work in creating Hebrew versions of the game.

Jack came about half a year ago, so this was his second visit. He knows some games already, so was prepared to enter into anything we could throw at him.

For Sale

Zack 85, Tal 84, Elijah

These three began with a light game, while the rest of us started something a little heavier.

Power Grid

David 16, Binyamin 14, Nadine 13, Jack 12+, Jon 12-

I suggested Princes of Florence, but somehow this ended up on the table, yet again. The only problem I have with it is that a) Nadine and David tend to take a long time to think through their moves (and end up playing better because of it), and b) too much cooperation going on, with everyone figuring out the best moves for everyone else.

As a result of a), Binyamin and I played a side game of Netrunner while this game was going on, whenever it dragged down. Amazingly enough, aside from a few points at the beginning of the game, it didn't drag down too much, even though it certainly took a long time to play (around 3 hours, not including a small break we took in the middle).

Note that we also played with a special rule change: A third row of power plants was added atop of the other two. This row merely revealed the next 4 plants coming up in the deck (no reordering or taking the highest or lowest from this row, surely a stack). As a result, the main other complaint we had about the game, which was the luck of a good power plant coming out, or a bad one coming out, after you made the best play, was entirely eliminated from the game. In my opinion, the change was an excellent one, and I intend to play with it from now on.

In our game, we played on the U.S. map with the Southwest blocked off. I had never tried starting on the expensive Northwest but decided to give it a go. It is, without question, the reason that I lost. I was expecting fighting in the East coast to offset the slightly higher prices I was paying on the West, but there wasn't any real fighting on the East. As a result, I was simply paying more and getting less each round, and that was all there was to it. In the end, I had a line of plants stretching from coast to coast, but this was not a pick up and deliver game.

David and Binyamin took the East coast, with Jack and Nadine in the center. Jack ended up going all green, while I had some early nukes. Coal and oil were therefore incredibly low priced for the entire game, as was most of the fuel.

Children of Fire: the Board Game

Zack 11, Gili 9, Elijah 6, Adam 5

Adam taught them all this game (reminded Elijah, actually), but somehow lost anyway. They finished it in reasonable time, so I guess didn't need the round limit that I generally impose on the game.

Netrunner

Binyamin+, Jon

This is a game whose main luck component is hidden cards and picking from them blindly. What this means, is that the shorter the game, the more luck and therefore the less interesting.

Our game, in contrast, was a long slow buildup, which made the game lots and lots of fun, very interesting and pleasurable. I still wish the game had a few more "Instant" like cards and direct targeting cards; I may need to buy a few more packs of cards.

I played the Corp and Binyamin the Runner. He played no hardware the entire game. However, he had a card that let him take the top card of his discard pile and a card that let him look through his deck and choose any card, As a result, he spent two actions almost every round simply picking any card he wanted from the deck.

I had a good deal of ICE out, but ultimately he found a way to my HQ through my Archives and pulled the last Agenda out of my hand.

San Juan

David, Nadine, Jack

While Kindershpiel was talking to me (and Binyamin), these guys played some San Juan, abandoning it mid-game when we resumed Power Grid.

Tichu

Adam/Tal 1000+, Elijah/Zack 500

While we wrapped up Power Grid, these guys played an entire game of Tichu to 1000 points. At least once, a nine card straight from Adam was beat by a higher nine card straight from Zack.

Quite an interesting game, though playing to 1000 takes quite a long time, relatively. There were many tichus and grand tichus called and made and lost. On the first turn, Tal made a fairly silly pass to the opponents. But after that she played well. --Adam

Lo Ra

Nadine 37, Jack 35, David 27

Jack is an experienced Ra player, so it didn't take him long to adjust to Nadine's Jewish themed version of the game. He had quite a collection of monuments, so I'm surprised to see that he didn't win in the end. It's mainly due to his first round score of -5 to Nadine's 9.

January 31, 2007

Participants: Jon, David R, Elijah, Binaymin, Nadine, Adam, Zack, Eyal

David R is an American in Israel on the Birthright program; actually,
he extended his visit after the program for a few months. He was happy
to find a game group in Jerusalem, and we are happy to have him over.

Attendance was fairly light this evening, but we had a good time.

The Menorah Game

Jon+, David R

It's always my pleasure to introduce new players to the game, even if
only two players and even if playing the basic version.

For Sale

Elijah 91, Zack 75, Nadine 73

This is not one of Nadine's favorites, but she gamely played it as a
filler game.

Go

Jon+, Adam

Adam had been practicing, going to the Go club and reading up on Go
strategy and the like, which gave him even more of an advantage than
usual. Furthermore, I haven't really graduated from the 11x11 board,
yet, but Adam wanted to play 13x13.

I'm pretty lost on a 13x13 board. As a result, Adam gave me two stones
to start with. While I'm not an expert on Go, I'm still a fairly strong
tactical game player.

As a result, and combined with the fact that we wanted to play quickly
so that we could join others in a larger game, Adam made a few mistakes
in play which I was able to exploit, while I only made one major error
(that I noticed).

Adam resigned when it was obvious to him that he would lose the last
major corner he needed to compete.

Wall of China

David R 42, Binyamin 40, Eyal 38

Another filler game played before the main games, I didn't see what
happened and I don't know the game. It appeared to be one where the
theme was not relevant to the gameplay.

Mykerinos

Binyamin 57, Adam 34, Elijah 31, Eyal 30

I taught them all how to play and they all appeared to enjoy it. With
a bit more strategy information than I had about the museum, the
resulting control of the museum was more evenly distributed among the
players, and therefore appeared to me to be heading to a close game.

This was obviously not the case, however. Apparently Binyamin was able
to pull every five-point tile he needed, and collect sets. I don't know
what happened with all the other players.

El Grande

Nadine 125, Jon 111, Zack 75, David R 66

Speaking of runaway winners, we taught this game to Zack and David.
Nadine took a commanding lead already by the end of the first scoring
round, around 15 points ahead of the rest of us in a pack. By the end
of the second scoring round she was 30 points ahead of me, and I was
around 20 points ahead of Zack and David R.

Partially this was owing to Nadine dropping single cubes in five areas
and then moving the King in the first round of play, and partially it
was due to a lot of clashing for second place which left Nadine taking
first place and no one at all taking second - a lot of wasted resources.

We seriously considered resigning, but Nadine wanted to play it out,
and the game is still enjoyable even when you're losing, although
obviously a bit discouraging for all that.

Nadine took interim scoring between scoring rounds two and three which
put her even further ahead. But my continuous and directed assault on
her positions, ultimately futile, were doing good damage. I managed to
catch up 30 points on her by the end score, which was much better than
I had anticipated.

Santiago

Jon 113, Zack 111, Nadine 103, Eyal 102

Another non-favorite of Nadine's, this is still a favorite of mine. We
played for the first time with the optional oases, which didn't add very
much to the game, but neither did it hurt the game in any way.

The water irrigation was plentiful and abundant in our game, so that the
water carrier wasn't making much money and points were high. Only one
field dried out at the very beginning of the game, and only two other
fields lost any cubes at all the rest of the game.

Fields were large and contiguous. Zack managed a great play of singly
occupying two separated potato fields and then connecting them while
I was busy with a large pea field. It netted him 70 points for that
field alone.

Cosmic Encounter

Elijah/Jon+, David+, Binaymin, Adam

Elijah had to go near the end of the game and Nadine briefly took over
after which I took over. Eyal had begun learning the game near the
beginning, but he switched to Santiago and gave David his seat in
return. That was a good switch, I think, as there was too much English
for Eyal, and it was more the type of game that David has experience
with I think.

They played two powers each and a few comets (which I detest). I
inherited a position where everyone had four bases. After being briefly
thwarted for the win by Binyamin who Filthed a planet, bringing me back
down to four bases, I captured the win on the next challenge with the
joint assistance of David.

Only after Binyamin went home did he write me an email saying that we
forgot that David also lost his fourth base on the Filthed planet, and
therefore he had only four bases at the end to my five, and therefore
wouldn't have allied with me if we had noticed/remembered this. Ah
well.