March 02, 2011

Participants: Jon, Gili, Nadine, Mace, Binyamin

Once again I'm doing this without notes. Bleah.

Fairy Tale

Gili 51, Jon 45, Nadine 36

Scores approximate. I tried a combination strategy only to discover on the first round that Gili, sitting in front of me in the passing order, was using the same strategy. I'm always scared to try the once that need specific cards from a smaller pool (such as 4, or even 1), because, with three players, it just seems unlikely that those cards are actually going to turn up. So I passed them all, and of course they did show up; luckily, no one else tried for them, either.

The baseline seems to be 3 points a card. So when you can score more, you should do it. The 6/1 cards (flip, unflip) are marginally better than 3 points a card, and even better when you have ones to flip down when you must. The game is actually kind of interesting. I think I need to play it more often.

Glory to Rome

Mace +, Jon, Binyamin, Nadine, Gili

First play for all of us, and we all liked the game. However, like Tigris and Euphrates, some of the basic mechanics, while seemingly simple for some of us, caused a lot of confusion again and again for others. I'm not sure why that happens, but sometimes a particular rule is just hard for an otherwise smart person to wrap his or her head around. I think I can teach the game better next time.

GtR looks like shlock, and the "box" that the game comes in is less then shlock. But the game is really good, deep, and satisfying. The game is just a card game, but each card has five different uses: a)cas a role; b) as an extra action for a role whenever anyone plays the role; c) as a resource for building a building; d) as a building that gives you a bonus power when it is completed; or e) simply to tuck away for vp's at the end of the game. once you get the hang of it, the cards make sense; however, they initially are very confusing, as the bonus power is foremost on the card and it isn't active unless the card is played as a building and the building completed.

On your turn you play a card as a role (a), and anyone else with the same role card can play it to also do the role (or can pick a card or cards, instead). So, like Puerto Rico, you benefit everyone else by what you choose to do, hopefully benefiting yourself more through the timing or the available resources to select first. On everyone else's turn, you can play the same role card as they played or pick cards; in addition, everyone, the player whose turn it is and any other player, gets to play the role additional times for each "patron" they have previously played (b).

The roles allow you to take patrons (b), take resources (c), play buildings (d) or add resources or cards to buildings (c/d), steal other players' resources (c), or convert resources to victory points (c/e). You pretty much have to complete at least one decent building during the game, because, in addition to the points and special power you get from the building, your capacity for patrons and victory point cards increases according to the building's points.

Owing to the building powers, the game is wild and fun, with your strategy determined by the cards you have at any one time. But you can always choose to draw back up to a full hand (so you can dump or play cards pretty freely), and there are always a lot of options.

The one negative ... which I'm not sure is a negative ... is that a few buildings can end the game with instant victory for a player, or simply end the game early. I'm not a big fan of that mechanic. I understand that this allows even a "losing" player the chance to win the game, but it makes all the other game play that occurred feel like a waste. In our game, mace won by completing a Forum, and the game ended like that. There are a number of possible responses to this move, but you MUST take them and prepare for them, which disrupts the game flow severely. On the other hand, this was our first game, so the idea of the "game flow" that I got from playing it once may have been illusory. We'll see.

In the Shadow of the Emperor

Jon, Nadine, Binyamin, Mace

I taught this to Binyamin and Mace and refreshed all of our memories at the same time. It took a long time to explain, and a long time to get through the first two rounds, at which point Binyamin had to call it quits. The game suffered in comparison to Glory to Rome which we had played just before; it's actually a decent game, but not nearly as exciting.

July 27, 2010

Participants: Jon, Gili, Miriam, Nadine

Game night was moved to Tuesday night at 7:30 owing to a conflict. And it's summer, so attendance is bound to be down.

In the Shadow of the Emperor

Jon 25, Gili 21, Miriam 18

My estimation of this game shrank a little, though I still enjoyed it. I really don't like game mechanics that put person A in a position of deciding to give a bonus to either persons B or C, where person A doesn't even get anything for doing so. Ugh.

I would say that this is what happens in this game with three players, but the truth is that it happened with four players, too. Maybe the game only shines with five players? Being both an election and an area control game, this is probable.

One other thing to note about this game is that, like Greed Incorporated, how you actually get victory points seems non-intuitive. It's not holding the electoral seats, but gaining the electoral seats that gives you points. Which means, it's best to lose control and regain an area every round, rather than simply keep it. Which makes little sense.

Otherwise, victory points are sparse and hidden within all of the other mechanics of the game. That's not necessarily bad, but it is, as I said, non-intuitive.

In our game, I did well in the beginning and then slid a little as the game went on. It appears that it is better to do better in the beginning of the game, rather than at the end, as it is worth slightly more points. Also a rather odd feature in a game.

Tichu

Jon/Gili 60, Nadine/Miriam 40

Miriam had time for one hand. They had nearly all of the good cards: Nadine had a bomb of queens, and Miriam had a full house of aces over kings, as well as the phoenix. Miriam went out first, but Nadine found herself left with a 9 and the Dog, which was not ideal.

Oltre Mare

Jon 107, Nadine 90something, Gili 70something

Nadine asked to try this again, and then complained at the beginning that it was too complicated, and then admitted at the end that it was good but too complicated. She is not good at games where a single choice of cards determines a number of different consequences; on the other hand, that's also the story with El Grande, at which she generally wins. So I don't know.

I don't like the trading mechanic, where other players get a bonus for trading on your turn. First of all, it's another kingmaker mechanic. Second, it discourages people from trading on their own turn.

I also didn't like the end mechanic, where one player ends the game and the game continues until all players have had an equal number of turns. I don't like it because many times you plan on one turn for the next turn, and it is not fair for some people to know that the game has ended when they take their last turn, while others don't. To solve this, I had the game go around one more time after the game ending condition. This worked very well.

In our game, we all started off in close proximity on the board, which was a little unfair for Gili who was in the middle. Nadine was getting points from playing only one card a turn but having the "X-3" chip, which is not ultimately as powerful as simply playing more cards each turn. All of the chips are worth about 2-3 points, but the gold symbol one is the most reliable.

I'm still not decided on the idea of buying cards. Obviously you have to buy or get cards when you are required to play a certain number. But how often do they return their purchase cost, I wonder?

Still an interesting game.

May 05, 2010

Participants: Tal, Hershel, Gili, Nadine, Jon, Bill, Shirley, Liza, Abraham

I arrived a little late, to Tal welcomed the first guests. Hershel returned after a long absence. Bill and Shirley brought a friend Liza, who had not played any modern games.

Set

Tal, Hershel, Gili

Tal entertained them with this until I arrived. I don't know how it went.

In the Shadow of the Emperor

Nadine 23, Hershel 19, Gili 16, Jon 15

First play for all of us. I read the rules for this last shabbat, and read them again as we set up. It looked like it wasn't going to be too complicated a game, but strategies were not obvious from the first. We all started making essentially random moves until about a third of the way into the game.

This is an area-control, negotiation game with some twists.

The game doesn't specify any kind of negotiation in the rules, but at several points in each round players may decide the fortunes of other players, which leads inevitably to negotiation. I'm not exactly thrilled with that mechanic, unless negotiations are enforceable; I don't enjoy backstabbing games (except Diplomacy, which is nothing but). And, with negotiation over fairly important points, much of your success or failure is a result of other people's whims, which means he who whines most generally wins.

In this game, negotiation plays a strong role unless you play carefully to avoid it. So it's kind of a mix. And we played with hidden victory points (they were trackable, like in Puerto Rico, but no one tracked them), so you couldn't always figure out to whom to give the points, assuming that you wanted to give them to the losing player and gang up on the winner. In actuality, we always guessed correctly. Nevertheless, the other players would have preferred to play with victory points open, so that they didn't have to guess.

Anyhoo ...

Other than that, the game was quite good. It reminded me of a more intense interactive version of Tribune.

It's played over five rounds. On each round:

- you collect income (a bit more if you have certain things on the board)
- all of your pieces on the board "age" (some die)
- you get a new piece or you get a VP or another gold
- you take as many actions as you can afford, and you may get some bonus actions if you had control of an area the previous round; there are various different actions, to age or youthen one of your guys, add new guys, move guys, take a victory point, gain bonus voting power, increase your income level, and so on
- you figure out who has control of each area, winning 2 points if you gain control of it (but not if you simply keep control of it)
- all players who have control of any area now vote for the new emperor, between the current emperor and the contender if there is one; the emperor gains a VP or two and some other bonuses on the next round (and the voters each get a point)

You gain points for: one of the actions, gaining control of an area, being in control of one particular area, voting for the emperor, or being the emperor. All of these are 1 to 2 points each, so final scores are low. All of the other mechanics seem like a lot of work to gain these few points, but it never felt like it was dragging or uninteresting.

In our game, I kind of got knocked out from all areas in mid-game, which made coming back very difficult. The only reason I did as well as I did were the few points thrown my way because everyone knew I was losing. None of use knew for sure who was winning, but we all essentially figured out the correct order. Nadine took the most straight victory points directly from the cards, and also had the highest income the earliest; I don't know how she managed that, yet.

R-Eco

Shirley, Bill, Liza

First play for Liza, I don't know what happened. Nadine coached.

Container

Shirley, Bill, Liza, Abraham

I didn't think this was the best first game for a new player, but at least, as Nadine said, the mechanics repeat themselves and are not too difficult. Shirley won.