November 29, 2010

Participants: Jon, Gili, Nadine, Mace, David K, Binyamin, Rivka, Toby, XXX

Game night was moved to Monday night owing to Hanukkah and events thereupon. Binyamin brought his wife Rivka a little late. I was going to play a three player game with them while I played Power Grid with the others, but then Toby (friend of my daughter) arrived, bringing someone new whose name I forgot. Neither Toby nor unnamed had played in the club before, to my knowledge.

Dominion/Intrigue/Seaside

Nadine 48, Gili 45, Jon 31

Kingdoms: Bureaucrat, Feast, Steward, Ironworks, Trading Post, Nobles, Haven, Native Village, Bazaar, Treasury

No extra buys in the set. No one bought Bureaucrat or Ironworks. We all tried different five point buildings, with Nadine starting on the Treasures. However, we all moved to get Treasures ourselves, eventually. I bought the first Noble and the first Province, but my luck didn't hold out well. We all pretty much knew that Nadine was winning.

Power Grid - Benelux

Nadine 13+, David 13-, Jon 12, Gili 11+, Mace 11-

First play for Mace, and I think all of our first play on the Benelux map (one or two of the others might have played on it once before). The different fuel arrangement doesn't make much of a difference, and neither does the occasional extra green power plant, but cycling out the lowest plant each round makes a big difference. We all ramped up in power plants pretty quickly, with the exception of Gili.

I took a look at the board before the first round, slapped my hand on my head and said that David was going to screw me in round seven. Lo and behold, the game lasted seven rounds because David ended the game precipitously, leaving me with far less than I would have had had the game gone on one round longer. He ended the game with 15 cities though he could only power 13, hoping that Nadine wouldn't be able to build to 13; but she could, and still had enough money left to win.

Mace, as new players tend to, played a lot of green.

Phoenicia

Binyamin+, Toby, Rivka, XXX

Binyamin set this up and explained it to Rivka when Toby and XXX walked in. This game is a bit more complicated than I would normally inflict on new players, but that's the way it rumbled. They caught on by round two or so, and I think they enjoyed it, though they did say it was complicated at the end.

Binyamin was counting out his money at the end trying to find a way to do more than tie for first, when someone pointed out to him a discount he could apply, which let him get an extra point without much difficulty.

I told them before the game started that they couldn't get change from their money cards when paying for auctions, which I think was incorrect in retrospect. Anyone have the rules in front of them?

Bridge

Jon/David, Mace/Nadine

We played a few hands. While he played Phoenicia, Binyamin coached Mace.

June 09, 2010

Participants: Jon, Miriam, Ksenia, Gili, Nadine, Abraham, Emily, Eitan, Rachel

Emily and Eitan make it back after a few weeks absence. Miriam was here for her third week; she's a natural gamer.

Dominion / Dominion Intrigue / Dominion Seaside

Ksenia 25, Jon 24, Gili 21, Miriam 21

Kingdoms: Chapel, Moat, Moneylender, Gardens, Adventurer, Steward, Coppersmith, Ironworks, Bazaar, Tactician

Lots of trashing doesn't mix well with Gardens, but Ironworks does. And one would take Moneylender or Coppersmith, not both. First time playing with Steward, and I noticed that you have to trash exactly two cards, not "up to two". First time playing with Tactician, which is as powerful as it looks, but it was still hard to choose between it and Bazaar.

First play for Miriam. It was a mistake to play with Steward and Ironworks, both of which require a choice between three actions, which makes it difficult to understand, let alone make the decision, on your first play. Tip: when introducing new players, don't play with complicated cards.

I thought it was a close, quick game, and it was.

Homesteaders

Abraham 53, Nadine 52, Gili 43

Abraham loves this game, like I do. Nadine wasn't sure after her first play, so she played again to see if she liked it better the second time. She said that she likes it enough to play it again, but it's not in her top tier with Puerto Rico or El Grande.

At the end scoring, they thought that they were tied, until they remembered that Nadine had to subtract 1 point for her debt.

Power Grid

Jon 15+, Miriam 15, Ksenia 15

First plays for both Miriam and Ksenia. I explained the market mechanics as we played, but only mentioned once, and early, about ties being decided by money. As a result, when the end of the game came down to money, Miriam hadn't prepared properly for it. Furthermore, it was fortunate that I was able to end the game the round that I did, because both Ksenia and Miriam were set to gain a lot more than I was on the next round: I was two cities up on them, bit still needed more capacity, while they both had 17 capacity already.

The reason for this was because, in our game, fuel, especially coal, was running out each round. And so, at the end of the game, in order to ensure that I had fuel, I had to dump a 5 plant powered by coal for a 5 plant powered by oil, and so couldn't move up in production capacity to any of the 6 or 7 plants (which were all coal).

I thought Ksenia wasn't handling the mid-game plants well, but somehow she ended up essentially tied with us by the end of the game, anyway.

Mr Jack

Emily++, Eitan

Emily and Eitan end up playing with each other often, as they tend to arrive late and while we're in the middle of other games.

Emily won two games against Eitan. In the first, she was Criminal and escaped in round 4. In the second, she was Detective and jumped on Mr Jack on turn 7.

Tichu

Nadine/Abraham 140, Jon/Miriam 60

We only had time for one hand while Eitan and Emily finished their second game of Mr Jack. Nadine went out of character and called and made Tichu. Miriam also considered calling it; luckily she didn't. She ended up going out last. I went out second.

Sticheln

Jon 27, Abraham 26, Eitan 14, Emily 4

First play for everyone except me, and I had previously only played one half of a hand. I had to look up the rules (on BGG, since I have the German edition) to remember how to play.

We played four hands, and we all played better with each hand. There are a number of things going on in the game. Still, I'm unconvinced that there is any strategy in the game; it seems to be nearly all tactics. Perhaps more plays will reveal more of the strategy.

• Hand 1: Abraham 8, Jon 4, Emily -13, Eitan -17
• Hand 2: Jon 6, Abraham 2, Eitan -2, Emily -2
• Hand 3: Eitan 12, Jon 8, Emily 5, Abraham 4
• Hand 4: Emily 14, Eitan 13, Abraham 12, Jon 9

Puerto Rico

Rachel 56, Nadine 51, Ksenia 47, Miriam 40

First plays for Miriam and Ksenia. Rachel had a full Guild Hall, Factory, and Small Market. Nadine had four corns, Factory, Wharf, and Customs House. Which kind of made whatever Miriam and Ksenia had irrelevant. Actually, Ksenia was pretty close (hmmmm... this is not the first time I've underestimated her score during a game).

April 07, 2010

Participants: Jon, David, Nadine, Lori, Gili, Abraham

Lori is a new attendee who found us through an Internet search. She had no gaming experience.

It's Alive

Lori+, David, Jon, Nadine, Gili

I don't prefer this five player, but this one moved ok. And it was nice for the new player to win. We played the basic game.

Settlers of Catan

Lori 10, Jon 9, Gili 8

And she won this one, too, but it was pretty close. I got hit by the robber three times, and was one card away from stealing Longest Road from her.

After two new games, Lori couldn't handle learning any other new ones.

Power Grid

David 15, Nadine 14, Abraham 13

It looked like Nadine was winning through most of the game, but, as is usual for Power Grid, only the last few rounds really made a difference. They played on France.

Boggle

Jon, Gili, Lori

Lori couldn't handle any new games, but she could play this. Gili, on the other hand, is a native Hebrew speaker, so this was a challenge for her. I'm fairly facile at the game.

To balance the game, we played with handicaps. I could only find words of five letters or more, Lori had to find four letters, and Gili three letters. We earned for any words not on the other players' lists, and +1 bonus point for each letter beyond our minimum (so I earned 2 points for a six letter word). This worked fairly well.

Gili won about half the games, but not by a large amount. We had a few boards where I couldn't find any five letter words, though I could see a number of four letter words that the others missed.

Tichu

Jon/Abraham 1090, David/Nadine 1010

A complete game, which lasted about 2 hours and 12 rounds. Abraham bid and made two grand tichu's. Scoring was very close the entire game.

November 11, 2009

Participants: Nadine, Abraham, Gili, David

This is the second week that I'm away. Session report is by Nadine.

Stone Age

Abraham 191, Gili 145, Nadine 102

Huge dice rolling luck for Abraham at the beginning. After one roll he
noticed a die shaved on the six side so we took it out. We should have let
me and Gili each use it once. I was third and behind on food and everything
so I went to a starvation strategy even though I had two food and hadn't
planned it out well. Abe had buildings and cards, Gili had a lot of cards.
David came partway through at the time we thought Emily and Eitan were
coming so he kibbitzed. I think Stone Age doesn't build to the end of the
game, you just what you can at the end, it's less related to what other
people are doing at that point, so less tension than other games.

Power Grid

Nadine 18/18 + 28, Gili 18/18 + 16, Abe 16/16, David 15/15

A lot of big plants came out early. And we played wrong, forgot to toss the
3 upon building to 3, so one early round would have been very different.
Second to last round when Step 3 was showing and came down, David was second
to last to bid and I was last. Gili and Abe had plants. David bid on a 4
plant, planning that I would bid for it, and he could wait and take the 31,
a six. So I passed, I had noticed the 31 would come down without asking. At
that point he realized that his plan was not a good idea, he didn't even
want the 4 plant. I thought he wasn't going to bid, I didn't need the four.
The six brought me to 16, otherwise I would have been tied with Abe, and he
would have tried to build to 17 and possibly won. So we don't know what
would have happened in all these other cases. Last round Gili got a 7, I
took a 6. If I had to bid high for a 7, I might not have had enough money,
but mainly the 7 had coal which Abe could buy out. Abe let Gili have the
plant cheaply because he couldn't win and to offset David's mistake which
had helped me. A long and fun game, a lot of tension and interaction in the
last two rounds, and throughout. A difference of 12 at the end really is a
tie, it's not due to better playing like a difference of 50+ is.

June 03, 2009

Participants: Jon, Elijah, Nadine, Gili, Abraham, David K

Elijah had no play practice, or school tomorrow, I'm guessing.

Dominion

Jon 42, Nadine 39, Elijah 33

First play for Elijah, who liked it. This time Nadine didn't believe in the power of Chapel. I took it and used it thoroughly. It was still hard to get rolling, because there were no cards that gave any bonus coin (except Market) or bonus actions other than +1 (Market, Cellar, and Spy). I ended with 6 Provinces, 2 Duchys, and 1 Estate.

Nadine did much better than I expected, having slowly taken 9 of the Duchys, as well as 1 Province.

Magic: the Gathering

Gili, Abraham

I taught this to Gili last time (or the time before), and she came back with a lot of rules questions to clarify. Abraham showed up and helped her through many of them. They played with some random cards until we finished Dominion.

Antike

Jon 9, Abraham 5, Elijah 4

First play for Elijah. I figured it would be his type of game, and he liked it. Abraham also was willing to play, and we were splitting into 2 games of 3 players each, so that worked.

I played Germanic, Elijah Italy, and Abe Greece. I moved forward 1 level in Know Hows for defense, production, and army movement, and then built a massive army. Elijah built one temple close to me which I sacked, and then I move on to Abe.

Abe concentrated on temples, building 6 temples for his 6 cities, and moving to second level in defense. He couldn't build any more until he expanded. I built a temple opposite his and massed armies. He couldn't defend all of them, but thought to lure my armies off to one side and them strike back into my territory. Unfortunately, he miscalculated his defense. I had just enough movement and armies to sack two of his temples at once, and doing so put me over ten cities, for a net gain of 3 point in a single round, which was enough to win immediately (we played to 9 points).

After I sacked his temple, Elijah spread out to Africa and the Spanish coast, largely trying to avoid conflict and hoping that Abe and I would kill each other.

Power Grid

David, Gili, Nadine

While we played Antike, they player Power Grid on the Eastern coast of the US (wussies). I don't know the results, but I know they skipped straight to phase 3 from phase 1. And played with our house rule of the top four cards of the deck open for inspection.

[DK: I won by powering 17. I think Nadine and Gili both pwered 16 with Nadine having more cash. Nadine could easily have built more cities, but she couldn't increase her power (6 plants ran out). Gili could power 18, but couldn't afford more than 16 cities. I ended with about 70 cash (before powering). Throughout much of the game Gili had tons of cash and thought she could afford to pay top bucks for power plants. In hindsight she overpaid.]

It's Alive

Abraham 51, Jon 49, Elijah 35

Abraham suggested this. I know it sounds ridiculous, but after playing the game again I really liked it. I've played it hundreds of times, but I still feel like I'm finding new strategic ways to approach it. I considered my point counts with coins near the end of the game, for instance, and evaluated whether it would be worth it to end the game with no coins but get the 5 point bonus, which is what I did.

But I lost to Abe, who had a smaller board but a hoard of cash. I actually lost the game on his turn, right before my turn, by buying a card from him instead of letting him take his own auction.

Path

Elijah, Abraham

I introduced both of them to this, just to see if they liked it. It's not easy to get into, because of the huge decision space available at the beginning of the game on each move. They didn't get to finish the game.

Atlantic Star

David 47, Nadine 44, Abraham 37, Jon 36, Elijah 31

First play for David, Abraham, and Elijah. Elijah had to leave mid-game, so we tried to play out his hand for him as best we could.

No one ever wants to play this, so I asked if I should get rid of it. I didn't realize that so many of them hadn't ever tried it. In the end, there's certainly a lot of luck, more so as the game goes on, but still enough decision making and money management to make it fun. I think they enjoyed it well enough to play again (if not suggest it).

David won, despite having accidentally bought a high valued card for a route he had already completed about mid-game.

April 01, 2009

Participants: Jon, Noah, Hershel, Nadine, David K, Avi

Noah comes for his first time. He made aliyah recently, so welcome aboard. He may be heading for ulpan or the army soon, however. Hershel returns for his second game night. And David brings back his young 'un, Avi.

R-Eco

Noah 15, Jon 2, Hershel 1

First plays for both Hershel and Noah. I don't remember much of the game.

Jon 33, Avi 1

Played much later, this is my personal best for the game. Of course, it was two-player.

Hershel 9, Nadine 6, Avi 4

I don't know about this game, either.

Agricola

Nadine 48, David 42, Hershel 26

First play for Hershel. Lucky for me, I didn't hear Nadine explaining the game to him. Nadine and Hershel both had good animals and ovens.

Power Grid

Jon 17, Avi 16, Noah 13

First play for Noah. This one is much easier to explain to a new player, especially one with a strong math background. We played on the cheap East Coast of the US.

I'm still fairly confused as to how one wins, though I suspect it has to do with some kind of perfect timing in the last three rounds. And a lot of that has to do with luck as to what plants are - and are not - available.

Trias

Noah 36, Jon 31, Avi 25

First plays for both Noah and Avi. I don't get to play this with the regulars, as they don't like it. I still think it's a fascinating, elegant game.

Avi was confused as to how the scoring worked, but he loved to drift extra tiles on his turn. The second island in our game already left the center tile completely isolated.

Magic: the Gathering

Jon+, David

We didn't have much time, so we forgoed our usual draft and simply each pulled 68 cards. I had pathetic in everything but blue and green, so that's what I played, with very light mana. David built a black, green, blue deck.

David pulled perfect mana, perhaps a tad in excess. By round four, he had 5 mana available, while I was stuck at 2 for some time. I eventually pulled mana's 3 and then 4 by the end of the game. That left my biggst cards unplayable, but I could get out most of the deck, one at a time.

The creatures I got out were nearly all fliers, which David couldn't stop. I pulled one card that killed his only annoying creature. And then I played a card that forced him to draw two cards and then discard four. Since he only had two cards in his hand at the time, it wiped out both a big creature he was poised to cast, and an enchantment that would have make it unblockable and untargetable.

He didn't draw anything else as useful after that, so I won. A miracle.

October 29, 2008

Participants: Jon, Gili, Nadine, David K

A quiet game night.

Carcassonne: the City

Nadine 133, Gili 111, Jon 89

I used to have Hunters and Gatherers, but I gave it away as no one was playing it; I thought maybe this new version could spark a renewed interest.

Gili was ok with trying it, while Nadine was much more guarded, claiming that Carcassonne is exactly the sort of game that she's bad at. Both of them took a very long time on each of their turns, seeming to forget from round to round how the scoring or tile placement mechanisms worked. I grew a little bored.

Despite this, I lost by a large margin. My mistake: I tried to save my towers for larger scoring opportunities, but the game ended before I could use them. The same with my meeples. In other words, the game ended before I could utilize all my resources.

I'm still less than thrilled with not having to match tile color areas, like you have to in H&G. In contrast, I like how a less than useful tile can at least be added to boost one of your wall meeples. There were a couple of rule questions; I'll head over to the Geek to check them out.

In the end, I liked the game, but I wish my opponents would have played faster. And I don't think either of them really liked it. I hope to have the opportunity to play it with others.

Power Grid

David 19, Jon 18, Nadine 17

Three experiences players, we played on the northern areas of the Benelux board. Despite a mistake or two, we all ended up close to each other near the end of the game. Nadine and I survived only by buying out the fuel and plants David needed to end the game two rounds in a row.

The game manipulations we needed to use to extend the game were antithetical to the game's theme, and, while amusing, were also somewhat annoying. I began to feel that the game is basically silly.

Other things that annoyed me, this time: that you have to keep calculating connection costs. The game would play similarly, but quicker, if all connections were a multiple of 5: 0, 5, 10, 15, or 20. And the auctions, as well.

Final game scores were nearly entirely due to the luck of the timing.

July 02, 2008

Participants: Jon, David K

Where did everyone go?

I know that Nadine is in America.

Magic: the Gathering

David++, Jon+

I pulled a stack of cards that I think I collected from my recent trip to Toronto. It had no artifacts and a lot of cards that were built to interact with artifacts, so during our draft, we kept tossing out cards and replacing them with ones that at least had possibility. As a result of this tossing, I picked a few direct damage spells about which David was unaware.

I built what i thought was a decent deck: 4 or 5 direct damage, including X spells, two creature removals in white, and enough creatures to hold off whatever he could throw until I got my damage out. Unfortunately, even when I draft well, I still can't seem to beat David.

The first game I lost because I didn't draw a second land for ten turns or so. I won the second game the way it was supposed to be won. The third game I sat waiting for a while holding his creatures at bay, but eventually he got his 4/4 flying dragon past my defenses and I couldn't keep from dying long enough to pull out both kill cards (I toasted him for 10, once).

Power Grid

David 21+, Jon 21-

We played on the Italy map, which we almost never use. But we played in Northern Italy, which is hardly like using the map, really. 2-player PG works, but the fuel really runs out, and it's all a matter of timing in the last round or two. I feel like I played better, but David won owing to holding the right goods versus a plant that came out at a certain time, and he only won by a few dollars, anyway.

June 11, 2008

Participants: Jon, Max, Sergei, Nadine, Avraham

A bunch of regulars were out teaching games at some sort of other event. Avraham is a new guy who lives nearby and who's just getting into board games.

Havoc

Jon 38, Nadine 29, Sergei 21, Max 18

Those scores are approximate, since I didn't write them down when the game ended. I've always found this game to be fairly enjoyable, if not stellar, but I enjoyed this session more than most. Maybe because I won.

Max and Sergei were first time players. Sergei emptied his hand fairly early, winning the first two battles, as well as the fourth, but then having and empty hand for the rest of the game. He tried to win one more battle with a five card hand that was full house; when he lost the battle, his hand was literally empty.

I came in second in some of these battles, and then won the key ones I needed. I remembered mid-game that the Dogs can be used to form a simple straight flush with low cards, which helped win one of them.

Power Grid

Nadine 14, Jon 13 (142), Max 13 (130), Avraham 13 (86), Sergei 13 (74)

This was a first play for both Avraham and Sergei. They took to it well enough, although Avraham thought it was a bit too long. We played on France, without the northeast area.

I started alone in the south, Max in the east, and the others fighting around Paris and suburbs. I remained undisturbed until mid-game. The game eventually came down to who could buy the best plant capacity. Max started off with the most in the end-game, but and incremental plant I bought allowed Nadine to buy a better plant with which she was able to win the game.

It's Alive

Avraham+, Nadine, Jon

I introduced Avraham to this game. We first tried the basic version, which I lost soundly. It's really quite different in strategy from the advanced version. It's slightly better in one sense, in that the lower cost tiles are also beneficial. But it lacks a certain depth.

Avraham 49. Jon 46, Nadine 41

And then we played the advanced version. I ended the game, but I couldn't beat Avraham's coffin laden board. I don't think I even pocked any coffins in the game.

We tried two variants: 1) Buying out of the graveyard for two coins instead of face value. This didn't work, as it made the Villager cards less useful. 2) Combine coins and cards for when you could use cards. This had the effect I knew it would, making cards simply feel like cash, which I don't like.

As far as I'm concerned, the game stays the way it is.

June 05, 2008

Participants: Jon, Binyamin, Nadine, Gili, Bill, Shirley, Ari

Shirley is Bill's wife, come to the group for the first time. Binyamin won every game he played tonight.

Mykerinos

Binyamin+, Jon

Nadine opted to sit this out, which I believe she has come to regret seeing as how long her Puerto Rico game ended up taking.

Mykerinos is actually an elegant game. When I first played it, I thought certain moves were fairly scripted, but this is not the case. It's definitely a game of tradeoffs, all the time. Unfortunately, in the fourth and last round, decisions really are sort of scripted, since nearly every move is a simple math calculation (in two player).

I haven't played this in a while, whereas Binyamin had. Therefore, I forgot a few rules and was blindsided by them when they came up in play. For instance, at the end of the game I forgot that after one person passes, the other players have only one more turn. I kept thinking that the other player can play himself out. This made a real difference.

I knew, but kept forgetting as I actually played, that control is for quadrant, not per board. As a result, I completely screwed up the first set of placement actions. I insisted that we stat again, since having played with the wrong goals in mind, I had lost every single quadrant. I restarted the game after the next two placements again, because I started out doing it again. Only on the third try did I finally get it.

I still lost by a great amount, because I neglected the library. That was totally my fault, however.

Mississippi Queen

Binyamin+, Ari+, Jon -2

I had played this only once, but the rules were fairly easy to remember. The only fuzziness was, when you pushed another player, did you drop speed as well as movement, or only movement?

It was a close game, not too long, and worth playing again.

Race for the Galaxy

Binyamin 36, Jon 35, Ari 31

Binyamin is convinced that the game is simply too short, and should be extended to 20 buildings and a lot more VPs. I am convinced that, if not the winner, then the losers are fairly well known by turn five, making any game extension simply more torturous to them.

Meanwhile, I'm convinced the, while there are multiple paths to victory, some people are going to draw a cohesive set of cards, and some aren't. The former have the potential to win, while the latter don't. Which makes the game torturous to the latter, anyway. But then, I can't explain how David K and Binyamin always seem to beat me. So I really need to study some strategies before I make any final conclusions.

To appease Binyamin, I thought we would try that the game ends when someone has built 8 devels or 8 settlements, and not simply 12 cards. And we added 12 more VPs. I think 10 would have been the better number, as the game was still nearing its end as Binyamin dumped 1 point devels nearly every round.

To me, any game where the end can be "hurried" when someone is ahead is problematic. It's what sinks Lost Valley as a game, too.

Power Grid

Binyamin 17, Ari 15, Jon 14

We played in Central Europe, and with the new deck of power plants. And, as usual, with the top four cards of the power plant deck face up (but still accessible only in order). We played in the three Eastern provinces. I started in the middle of the board, which squashed my expansion and that was nearly that. I had more capacity two rounds before the end, but less cash, and so I couldn't solidify my capacity and buy the fuel I needed and also buy the eight or so cities I needed in the last two rounds.

Binyamin adds: We totally forgot about the -1 discount for garbage [in Wien]. I had the 21 plant - 3 garbege for 5 cities - for at least 4 rounds and didn’t take any discount. That might have made an absurd change, as if I had more money and as I thought Ari has lots of money. I might have tried to go for a 7 plant and not finish the game, which would have been wrong, of course, but I didn’t know that. Interesting thought, how a bit more money could actually make me, maybe, be lose the game.

Puerto Rico

Shirley 57, Nadine 44, Bill 40+, Gili 40-

During the time it took us to play half of Mykerinos, Mississippi Queen, Race for the Galaxy, and Power Grid, these guys played one game of Puerto Rico. It was Shirley's first game, and Bill's second game. Shirley really loved it, and winning by a mile didn't hurt.

She ended with 36 shipping points and Custom's House. Bill had some good shipping, but no big buildings. Otherwise, I don't know what happened.

Nadine adds: I enjoyed Puerto Rico even though it was very slow. Part of that was for multiple explanations, which I don't mind. Bill got a Wharf near the end. He had enough for a big building afterwards, but it was too late to mayor it. Shirley was third and had a Sugar monopoly for a long time, Bill had early Tobacco, and got a Factory. Shirley had Harbor which gave her a lot of points. Gili produced Coffee and Indigo only. I had a Factory and Wharf and Coffee.

Bill had 3 corns and shipped 5 corns on his wharf at least twice, he also had a small warehouse.

It's Alive

Shirley 57, Nadine 53, Bill 45

Again, Shirley's first play and Bill's second. Assuming that Shirley finished her board first, it looks like she won with the board completion bonus.

Nadine adds: I finished my It's Alive board first, because I always pretty much play the basic version, but it wasn't enough this time. Shirley had the some score in Puerto Rico and It's Alive, and won all her games too, though two isn't the same as 4.

April 29, 2008

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Dylan, Genia, Gili, David K

Game night was moved to Tuesday owing to Holocaust Remembrance day being Wed night / Thursday.

Solomon's Stones

Nadine+, Jon

Jon, David

Solomon's Stones is a game sent to me by a new publisher Solbenk. It has simple rules: each person takes one or more stones from any single column or row. The last person to take a stone loses.

For a full review, see my blog.

None of us really wanted to play this simple and elegant abstract game, as it was far more interesting to sit down and consider the game as a kind of puzzle. Working our way up from the most simple positions, we tried to determine how the game could be solved.

I was convinced that it would not be too difficult to solve. David considered that it might be more challenging to solve than it seems, and may even be NP complete. I will do a deeper analysis on some other night.

Saikoro

Dylan, Genia

Jon+, Dylan

Jon+, David

Saikoro is the second game sent to us by Solbenk. For a full review, see my blog.

In short, the game is a really good game, much better than I expected. I expected it to be depressingly simple or repetitive. But, in fact, the game provides an interesting set of patterns, a tight game play, and a story arc as the board changes and mobility becomes difficult.

We were still learning the patterns in my first games. David probably only lost to me because I didn't fully explain all the rules before we started playing.

I expect that the game will come out again many times as a quick and interesting filler game for two people.

Notre Dame

Jon 73, Gili 67, Nadine 58, Dylan 47, Genia 44

This was Genia's first game, and she was interrupted by a few phone calls during the game. She believe that she may have lost a few points she was supposed to get from her Park, though everyone else at the table claims to have given her the correct amount.

I played a very even game at the beginning, nearly completely ignoring victory points in favor of cubes, gold, Park and Hospital, with one cube in Notre Dame as an exception. As a result, I had only 5 VPs at the end of the first triad, while others had 15 or more. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to win.

Eventually, I took the favor that let me move three cubes over to the Park, allowing me to net +2 VP for each VP gain. As a result of this, moving my carriage, and a few other favors, I made a bunch of 10 point gains which put me tied for first place with Gili who was doing the VP track.

On the last round, Gili and I tied for points, but I had a cube in Notre Dame and she got hit with rats. The rats took Gili down a number of times during the game.

I can't remember what everyone else was doing, but most people had a few cubes in Hospital and 2 in Park. I think this was my first victory.

Power Grid - Central Europe

Nadine 16, Jon 14, Gili 14, David 10*

In the last third of the game, we were all convinced that David was going to win this, hands down. In fact, it didn't look like anyone else had a chance. David could power 13 while the rest of us could only power 9, and he had the money and cities, too.

However, in phase 2, he was stymied from building to 17 cities by the simple fact that every single city already had two plants in it. And on the last round, Nadine acquired a plant that allowed her to run out the fuel from under him. It's amazing how often the game turns on what happens on the last round (and therefore, the penultimate round as well).

We played on the Central Europe board for the first time. Nadine found the nuclear building provinces silly; I rather liked them, although I wasn't affected by them. In fact, I rather liked the board altogether.

Games Day: April 24, 2008

Participants: Jon, Saarya, Nadine, Adam, Binyamin, Tikva Shira, Zvi Yehuda, David Klein, Avi Klein, Yarom, Maayan, Maya, Yardena, Yedidya, Yitzchak, Jonathan, Roie, Omri, Rachel A, Yosef, Dylan, Ben, Gili, Dvir, Shimon, Ari, David B, Pini, Yosef B, Richard, Vera, Raphaela

I'm Jon and Saarya is my son. Nadine, Adam, and Binyamin are group regulars. T"S and Z"Y are Binyamin's kids. David is a group regular. Avi is David's kid. Yaron has been playing games in other parts of Israel for many years, but rarely gets out to my group. Maayan and Maya were his guests. Yedidya and Yitzchak are Yardena's kids. Jonathan is a new group regular. Roie and Omri saw the ad on Tapuz. Rachel A is my wife. Yosef saw the ad on Janglo or my blog, I think. Dylan is a group regular, Ben is my brother and a group regular, Gili is a group regular. Dvir, Shimon, and Ari saw the ad on Tapuz. David B is my other brother and Pini and Yosef B are his kids. Richard, Vera saw the ad on Janglo, and Raphaela is their daughter.

32 people is record attendance. In fact, if we get this many or more in the future, we need a bigger place.

Amun-Re

Binyamin 51, Roie 42, Ben 38, Omri 31, Zvi Yehuda 531

Ben doesn't get to play this game in his community because his gamers object to the other deities and sacrifice.

Nadine 54, David B 39, Yosef 38, Ben 34

This was first game for David and Yosef. David thought it was a good game but the -3 card (stealing 3 gold) wasn't strong enough to overcome the loss of a free item.

Anagrams

Jon, Yardena

I went easy on Yardena at the start of this game under the assumption that I would be much better than she was, since she had Scrabble experience but not Anagrams experience. After a few words, however, it turned out that she was excellent. After that I played as well as I could and we both ended up with about the same number of words.

Bridge

Nadine, Ben, Binyamin, Zvi Yehuda

They played a few hands toward the end of the day.

Cities and Knights of Catan

Yitzchak, Yosef

Played a two-player game to learn the rules, I believe.

Yosef 13, Jon, Jonathan

I started off pretty well, but Yosef relentlessly hit me during the game and rose over my back. He got a quick early metropolis, and another one soon thereafter. He won the game with Longest Road.

Colosseum

Zvi Yehuda 83, Gili 80, Tikva Shira 65

This is a big sprawling game with busy graphics. I played it once and thought it was a typical Euro.

Cosmic Encounter

Binyamin, Pini, Yosef, Zvi Yehuda

I think I have the wrong people written here, except I know that Binyamin got bored by the game since he didn't think the aliens were interesting enough (he had Void/Zombie).

Go

Adam+, Jon

Adam slaughtered me by capturing a large central area on an 11x11 board. I still love the game, but I really really suck at it. I started with two stones.

Jon+, Yardena

I taught Yardena how to play on a 9x9 board. Even by the end of the game, she wasn't quite sure she had grasped the rules of capturing groups. She started with a two stone advantage.

Imperial

Binyamin brought this and taught it to several groups of people, but no one took him up on the offer to actually play it.

Magic: the Gathering

Jon++, David++

David and I did our usual Rochester draft. Both of us ended with serious difficulties in cutting down colors for our deck. I had more Red, but I settled on Blue as my third color. There was no way to cut it down to two colors. I did BGU while David did BRU.

I lost the first game. The second game, I was distracted by some other events around me and forgot to say I was casting a blocker from my hand, so I lost, but David said I should have won (I recorded it as his win). In the third game my deck worked and his didn't. In the fourth, we were well on a repeat of the third so he resigned.

David+, Pini

Pini used my deck to play David while I was eating dinner and lost.

Pirate's Cove

Tikva Shira, Zvi Yehuda

I saw them playing this two player. Binyamin heard the rules and wasn't interested because of the excessive dice rolling. I sympathize, but I like the game anyway, for some reason.

Power Grid

Dylan+, Dvir, Shimon, Ari

I taught the latter three this game and then stepped out for Dylan to play. I forgot that Dylan's grasp of the rules wasn't perfect. As a result, they forgot that you couldn't have more than three power plants. I'm sure they got some of the power plant rotation rules wrong, too. Dylan won on the tie breaker.

Puerto Rico

Rachel+, Roie, Omri

Omri and Roie brought two games, PR and Princes of Florence, both of which I have. They sat down to play with Rachel. I was thinking of warning them that they don't know what they're up against, as she is a killer.

She ended up winning, but not as badly as I won against inexperienced players the day before at the Beit Shemesh club - something like a 10 point spread. She said it was fun, especially when she had no idea what her opponents were going to do, unlike when she played with us regulars.

Race for the Galaxy

Yaron, Maayan, Maya, Jonathan

This was the first time for all of them (2nd for Jonathan?). It took them quite some time, as first game are want to do.

David B 29, Pini 25, Yosef B 15

I taught all of them how to play and then left them to it. As a result, they were often confused. David realized that their was a lot to the game, but the other two were somewhat frustrated. They all would have enjoyed it more if I had played with them as well; I'm sorry I didn't.

Nadine 42, David 32, Jon 29

We three wanted to play this at the end of the evening. Nadine won using her usual brown world strategy. I started with the military world, which I think is a poor strategy in comparison.

David 64, Jon 45, Nadine 41

I tried a brown world strategy, but David took it from me and did it better. He also had yellow worlds going. it was obvious a third of the way into the game that he was going to slaughter us. Which began to make me resent the game. Once I was losing and my initial worlds turned out to have been the wrong ones, there was no hope of catching up and a whole game to know that.

RftG is therefor a fascinating puzzle, but somewhat frustrating as a game.

R-Eco

David 17, Jon 3, Nadine 2, Avi 0, Adam 0

My only points were from not dumping. David pulled the 4 and 5 of red in his last two moves.

Avi 16, Nadine 8, Yardena 6, David 5

Yardena liked the game because the rule set was simple and she didn't have to think too much (she thinks a lot during work, generally).

David B, Pini, Yosef B

I taught them this and they all liked it for what it was.

Yosef, Gili, Binyamin

Played near the end of the day.

Robo Rally

Jon+, Nadine, David, Avi, Adam

This was our opening game and it was fun. We played on one board with two flags at opposite corners. David, Nadine, and I were all close, with Adam right behind. This despite my opening turn as nothing but left and right turns. As usual, chance played heavily in who was able to get the second flag in the final stretch.

Yaron, Maayan, Maya, Dylan, Jonathan

I taught them all how to play, and warned them that a typical game, even on a short board with one flag, takes a good hour and a half. Dylan then won on his second play.

Santiago

Maayan+, Yaron, Maya, Jonathan

This was another new game for all the players.

Settlers of Catan

Roie, Omri, Yosef, Yedidya/Yitzchak

Y and Y really wanted to play but there wasn't enough room so they shared a position.

Shadows Over Camelot

Gili, Tikva Shira, Saarya, Richard, Vera, Raphaela, Jonathan

I taught some, and some had played once or twice. Richard, Vera, and Raphaela came in just as we were about to start and I included them. This was their first game, and they didn't make it through to the end, even though Vera told me that it was much better than Monopoly. Still, it's a fairly complicated game for your first game, though the mechanics themselves are pretty easy.

When they left, three players finished the game three player, each with two roles. Gili inherited the traitor (or started as the traitor). he game ended with seven white swords, but then two flipped because the traitor was still in the game, so the company lost (and Gili won).

Winner's Circle

Binyamin, Zvi Yehuda, Tikva Shira

The opening game for them.

Year of the Dragon

Nadine 104, David 84, Gili 77, Tikva Shira 58

David and Nadine had both played Year of the Dragon once, and David had won that time. Tikva Shira knew the basics, and it was Gili's first time. This game is played in preference to Notre Dame, being considered nearly the same game but better (though ND is a fine game).

February 27, 2008

Participants: Nadine, Gili, Binyamin, David

[Note this is the second of two weeks that I (Jon) am away. The report was done by Nadine.]

R-Eco

Nadine 21, Binyamin 10, Gili 1

Binyamin joined after we had played a few rounds. I had more luck than I thought the game has. [Gili 1? She must have been thrilled.]

David & Goliath

Gili 39, Nadine 32, Binyamin 27

Binyamin knew I had this and wanted to try it, another Secret Santa gift, from last year. We usually don't play with real cards. It's hard to get used to how it works, and feels hard to control.

[I've played this a number of times and haven't decided what the basic strategies are, other than simple tactics.]

Power Grid

Tie 17/17 all (final money: David 84, Binyamin 26, Gili 13, Nadine 0)

[The game was played on the] U.S. Board [using the] New [power plant] cards.

A fun game with lots of planning and recalculating buys in advance. A few lucky auctions despite the 4 card preview. The new cards are different, David says less interesting because they're more similar to each other. So to some extent fewer competitive auctions. Binyamin was trying to buy to 18 on the last round because he could fuel it, but couldn't buy the fuel and cities.

Bridge

David, Nadine, Binyamin

[They played three-player for a while after Gili left.]

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.

December 27, 2007

Participants: Jon, Nadine, David, Binyamin, Ben, Yitzchak, Gili

A very ordinary, but enjoyable, game night.

Down Under

Jon+, Nadine

Nadine 32, Jon 30, David 21, Binyamin 21

This little game was sent to me as a gift. It's about the size of my game It's Alive. It's a boardless tile laying game for up to four players. A second game is also explained in the rules, using the reverse side of the tiles.

On your turn, you have access to all of your tiles, which means that there's no "luck" in the way of tile drawing. Each tile has a road of your color, a separate road in gray, and an animal on the gray road. You place one of your tiles so that the road of your color on your tile extends your route. Your route includes all previous tiles you placed of your color, and any gray tiles that you managed to include in the route by connecting to them.

The board can only grow to a certain width and length. When no one can't place any more tiles you count the length of your route plus sets of animal combinations on your route to arrive at your final score.

It's actually quite nice and fairly quick. I enjoyed both the two-player and four-player game. None of the other players seemed to like it, unfortunately, except Nadine seemed to like it a bit. It seems to work two, three, or four player equally well.

I found some of the rules a bit hard to understand, especially the "cap" pieces that you are able to play at any time, but don't make sense to play until the end of the game, and don't do anything anyway. I couldn't figure out how or why they did anything.

Power Grid - Benalux

David 15, Jon 12, Nadine 10

This was our first play on one of the new boards. Benelux is a very cheap board, and the power plants cycle very quickly, making the game pretty short. In addition, oil is cheap and plentiful, while coal is expensive and scarce.

David managed to tap into the oil well and maintained a lead because of it throughout the game. He also expanded quickly into my cheap territory. A pretty easy victory on his part, but still fun to play.

Taj Mahal

Binyamin+, Yitzchak+, Ben, Gili

This game hadn't come out in a while. Ben had to have the rules refreshed to him. In the end, Binyamin and Yitzchak tied when the cards were added to the interim scoring.

Cosmic Encounter

Binyamin+, Yitzchak+, Ben

After Gili left, they got this game out. Wild as usual, but the game didn't last long and I think they weren't keen to continue it anyway, for some reason. Binyamin and Yitzchak managed a joint win on a deal.

Bridge

Ben/David, Jon/Nadine

Ben/Yitzchak, Binyamin/Nadine

A usual evening-ended, sometimes for more than an hour, like this evening. They don't seem to tire of it.

Magic: the Gathering

Jon+, David+

Binyamin actually wanted to play Magic, too, but Ben preferred Bridge. David and I continued to plow our way through the new cards I brought back from Canada. I think I had the stronger deck. We split the games, but I only lost the second game because of mana screw.

December 12, 2007

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Hillel, Yitzchak, Binyamin, David, Channie, Saarya

Hillel has come occasionally before, and Channie is the latest of David's daughters to try out the group.

Arkham Horror

Jon, Nadine, Hillel, Yitzchak, Binyamin

I knew this would take a long time, but I also thought it might be interesting. Yitzchak was very keen to play. In theory this could have accommodated all the participants, but I thought it might be unwieldy with more than five. Turns out that it probably would have worked better with eight.

We didn't finish the game, but it looks like we were all headed to our doom.

The game is a huge and complex thing, with dozens of different avenues to explore. We barely scratched the surface. I found it to be all-the-more intriguing for that. On the other hand, Nadine thinks that once you've explored all the basic strategic paths, it's going to get less interesting.

She points out that, unlike Shadows Over Camelot, there is almost nothing in the way of cooperative activity in this game. In Shadows, aside from the traitor, you have to combine players on certain tasks. Here, everything can only be done by one person. There are a few cards out of the hundred available that say something like "heal 1 point" to another player, but you both have to be in the same space, which is generally a waste, and 1 point isn't a big deal.

You can't fight monsters together: if you fight a monster, it gets to hit you. If two of you fight, it gets to hit both of you; it doesn't have to choose which one of you to hit. Gates are always closed by one person, and there's nothing you can do to combine efforts.

So our first game felt like a classic multi-player solitaire. Will this change with more plays? Maybe. There are a lot of cards I haven't seen yet. Even so, just exploring all the possibilities looked like fun.

Geschenkt

Binyamin, David, Saarya, Channie

Played as an opener.

Power Grid

David, Channie, Saarya

I have no idea, but I assume they tried out one of the new maps.

Bridge

Jon, Binyamin, Nadine, Yitzchak

Played as a closer.

November 14, 2007

Participants: David, Gili, Nadine, Hillel

I was away in Canada, so Nadine took notes.

San Juan

David 47, Nadine 29, Gili 28

We took Library out of the game because David thinks it's too powerful,
which it probably is. I had no 6 point cards even with Prefecture and
lots of Counselling. Gili had a Tower and all the cards. She didn't get
to build her Palace at the end. David got 14 points from Guild Hall, and
had Palace.

Power Grid

Nadine 18/18, David 17/17+, Hillel 17/17-, Gili 15/15

We had no rounds of Step 2. At the end of the game only 3 power plants
were left on the board. We didn't think I'd be able to build to 18
cities at the end, but I was able to buy 5 cities in the Northeast for
under 120. Otherwise David would have won a tie at 17 cities on money.
It seemed somewhat lucky to me though I'm probably improving somewhat.
It was Hillel's first time playing. We gave him advice, but mostly he
caught on to the strategic aspects and did well.

October 24, 2007

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Yitzvhak, David, Gili, Orah, Hillel

This was my last games night in Israel before a trip to North America. Nadine will be hosting game nights for the next three weeks.

Gili finally returned after her vacation, and she brought her mom, Orah, with her. Hillel is a new player who found us through my blog. He enjoyed himself, so hopefully he will be back. I didn't get to play with either of them, however.

Colossal Arena

Nadine 11, Jon 10, David 3, Yitzchak 0

The last time I played this I was not impressed. And no one has been hankering for it since then. So I was thinking of adding it to my trade list. Before I did, I wanted to give it another try.

Essentially, the game consists of selecting 8 out of the 12 available creatures to do battle. To do this, you need to separate out the 12 cards for each creature type from the pack of cards, as well as 11 spectator cards, and a few referee cards. The others are set aside.

You lay out the descriptive cards of each of the eight creatures at the top of the table. Each battle is "fought" in successive rows on the table beneath the top row. At the end of each battle, the lowest valued creature is no longer in play. The next battle is fought one row further down, with one less creature. After five battles, only three creatures remain.

Battles are fought by players placing cards corresponding to the creatures in the current battle row one by one. You can cover up a card already in place. As soon as all creatures fighting in a round have a card, the creature with the lowest number is eliminated. If there is a tie for lowest number, keep playing until there isn't. Cards are valued 0 to 10 for each creature and must be played on that creature. A card from single set of spectator cards valued 0 to 10 may be played on any creature.

Each round, you bet, place a card, and draw back up to 8 cards. Special cards or abilities may come into play.

During the game, you place bets on these creatures. The earlier the battle, the more valuable the bet. In the first round you can also place an additional secret bet. Only one person can place a bet on one creature each round, and only after the creature already has at least one card on it from this turn.

The last rule is the one I missed the first time I played and makes all the difference. It is a critical rule that makes the game far more enjoyable. Without it, you can bet on anything you want and then play a card on that bet. Instead, you have to play a card which might enable someone else to place the bet on it before it gets back to you.

Each creature also confers a special ability for you if a) you place a card on it this round, and b) you have the highest valued total bets on this creature.

It's actually an interesting game. The most interesting part is that you can place either low cards on creatures you don't like or high cards on creatures you do. You can end the game with a high card on the last remaining creature without a card yet, dooming some other creature, or a low card on that creature, dooming it instead. Assuming you have the card you need.

However, the game still has a few problems, which we noticed the last time, too.

The biggest problem is the point system, Like Quo Vadis, point scores in this game are simply too low and therefore likely to tie all too often. It's just not enough, and not enough ways to score. Furthermore, the betting system makes most of the bets fairly worthless and most of the creature special powers also fairly worthless. It's a drag on the game. Higher valued bets, the last row being worth something, and interim scoring opportunities ala El Grande would make the game much better.

The second problem is design. The spectator cards look exactly like the creature cards and are impossible to distinguish except by reading the fine print. They should have big words saying "Spectator" on them. And many of the creature cards have nearly the same coloration or name, making them hard to distinguish, too. There is no special corner symbol; you have to hold the cards so that the entire top of each card is visible. This makes setting up the game, and figuring out what you have in your hand difficult.

One other problem was remembering which creatures were eliminated from play each round at a quick glance. This information is important since you need to know how many creatures remain this round. Flipping over their card in the top row wasn't good enough, and in fact made it worse. Instead, we collected all the cards previously played on those creatures and made upside down piles in their column in the current row.

I think my problem last time also may have stemmed from too few players. You definitely need a full complement of betting to make the game interesting.

It's not going to hit the table often. However, it's also not too expensive, so not worth my effort in carrying it over to the U.S. to trade, as I doubt I would get much for it.

In our game, Yitzchak had bad luck and got eliminated often. Nadine and I seemed to overlap on most creatures, which made us allies. I had the nicer bets, but she had a secret bet which gave the final win.

San Juan

Gili 40, Hillel 34, Orah 34

Gili taught this to Orah and Hillel and they played the entire game with open hands.

Bridge

Jon/David, Yitzchak/Nadine
Played as a filler. I opened 2c on one of the hands.

Power Grid

Jon 18, David 17, Yitzchak 16

A win for me, which either means I'm getting better or that my opponents are making more mistakes. In an unusual turn of events for PG, it seemed like I was winning most of the game and then I actually did.

David took the early 8, I had the 5, and Yitzchak the 4. Yitzchak grabbed an early 20 which set the stage for too much coal usage. I seemed to lose the battles for all the best plants, but the others had to spend an extra 10 or 20 to get them. Instead, I built a lot of cities, kept the plant market cycling quickly, and ensured that I wasn't too dependent on the fuel others needed.

They eventually bought some green plants which reduced the resource supply problem, although coal was always still in short supply. I avoided it, since I was always buying fuel last and didn't want to be stuck without any.

Near the end, I had the least plant capacity, but I had 15 cities to their 10 each. But they still needed to buy plants because, even though they had more capacity than me, they still didn't have 17 or 18. So they were stuck buying plants and cities, while I only had to buy plants. And there were enough big plants to go around in Stage 3. In the end, neither of them could afford to get to more than 17 plant capacity, while I raised mine to 18 and bought my last city.

Pirate's Cove

Gili 34, Hillel 30, Orah 27, Nadine 27
Gili brought and taught this. There seemed to be an awful lot of dice rolling and combat from where I was looking. Nadine said the game was nice, but essentially a nice war game, with Eurogame chrome. Battles didn't eliminate your ships, just your cash, so it wasn't entirely war gamey.

October 17, 2007

Participants: Nadine, Yitzchak, David, Jon, Binyamin, Tal, Ginat

Game night was at Nadine's house, since I thought I would be late. I only arrived a little late, at 7:15.

Puerto Rico

David 62, Yitzchak 56, Nadine 47

They opted to play this as a starter game, promising to play quickly. It took an hour, which is quick enough, for them.

Havoc

Jon 30, Tal 28, Binyamin 24

Tal doesn't play heavier games, and this is one of her favorites. Or it used to be, until she realized that her strategy of always waiting to win the last two battles didn't always mean winning the game.

Binyamin won both the first two battles, but nothing more until we finished the first seven. Tal and I took 2 and 3 of the next battles, respectively. I was ahead in points now, but it came down to the remaining two battles. If either won both of them, they would win the game. If they split, I would still be ahead.

My hand was seriously depleted, so I wasn't in the running for the last two battles at all. Binyamin was convinced that he wasn't going to win either. He had the opportunity to simply not call Havoc at all, basically handing me the victory, since the eighth battle wouldn't be fought and the remaining points wouldn't be enough to beat me. But he didn't. They ended up each winning one battle, which gave me the victory, anyway.

Blokus Trigon

Binyamin+, Yitzchak
Binyamin brought this out as a filler game. Yitzchak had only once played the regular Blokus.

Princes of Florence

Yitzchak 72, Binyamin 63, Tal 54

They played on the fancy graphics new version in German. Jesters were selling cheap.

Power Grid: France

Jon 16+, Nadine 16-, David 13

End scores in Power Grid give you little information about how the game went.

This was our group's first time on an extension board. Nadine and David spent some time picking which country and provinces in which to ply, finally settling on Western France. We played with the correct France rules which tossed out the 13 plant, put the 11 in its place, and added more nukes to the initial setup.

Both of them had the opportunity to place cities on the board before me, and both chose not to take Paris fearing imminent enclosure. Instead they both placed right outside of Paris. I took Paris.

And after my fourth city build, I was enclosed. Despite this, I was earning more cash than either of them, which allowed me to jump across the board to mid-France, and then all the way down to the south coast.

Resources were in short supply. Coal went first. Nadine and I were sitting in Phase 3 with 13 cities each, to David's 10. He had plant capacity to power 15 cities, Nadine 13, and me 10.

All of us were able to take a 6 power plant, giving David 17 capacity, me 13, and Nadine 17. Except Nadine couldn't really power 17, since I kept running out the garbage fuel she needed.

In the last round, we finished all the big power plants, netting me a maximum power capacity of 16. There were no more plants I could get, so I was bound to lose if David could build the cities. Nadine tossed her 7 garbage plant, since she could never fuel it, and instead took the 50. So she was also now limited to 16 capacity.

The game had to end that round for me to win; otherwise David would just build 3 cities this turn, 4 the next, and power all 17. Luckily he wasn't able to get even to 16 cities in this turn, so I built to 17, being able to power 16 of them. Nadine could also build to 16, but had far less cash, even having to build one less city.

If you followed all that, you're a genius.

It's Alive

Binyamin 46, Yitzchak 42, Ginat 37

Binyamin find the new graphics gross.

Bridge

Jon/Yitzchak, Binyamin/Nadine
Yitzchak played two 5c contracts. The first he made. The second I jumped to 5c as a sacrifice bid over my his 2c bid followed by Nadine's 2h. Binyamin doubled, and Yitzchak redoubled. Yitzchak is still a bit new to the bidding game, and so didn't realize I was sacrificing; he thought I was powerful. And forgot that I had initially passed.

Turns out we only went down one. He had 7 clubs. And our opponents were cold for 5h, and might have made 6h.

October 10, 2007

Participants: Jon, Ben, Nadine, David K, Adam, Binyamin

Group attendance still light, but I don't mind. We still argue about what to play.

Power Grid

Ben 17+, David 17-, Adam 14

They played in the middle of the Germany board. Third phase seemed to come early, but there was a dearth of high-producing power plants. Some fierce bidding over the last plants, up to 130.

Ben won by cash. David expended his cash in order to beat out Adam to a plant, but it turned out that her didn't need to, since Adam wasn't going to be able to build enough cities. As a result, David lost to Ben in the cash situation.

Cleopatra and the Society of Architects

Binyamin 58/1, Jon 57/5, Nadine 73/6

This was a basic set collection game taught to us by Binyamin. It uses a lot of fancy components to built a palace for Cleopatra, including the entire box cover. So if your box cover rips, you're out a component. Although really the box cover is not necessary.

There are three piles of cards. Each turn you either take a pile of cards and add one card to each pile (the one you took from is now a single card). Or you meld your sets and earn points. As the palace gets built, less set types are available to meld.

Many of the better cards give you corruption points, as does going over ten cards at any point. Once or twice a game there will be a blind bid of victory points, with the highest player losing 3 corruption points, and the others gaining some more. Everyone loses their bid.

In the end, the player with the most corruption can't win the game. Of the remaining players, the one with the highest victory points wins. Tie goes to least corruption.

That's about it. The corruption point element and had size limit adds some nice decision making to the game. There are a bunch of other flavor mechanics adding details, some of which seem rather dispensable.

In our game, I was convinced I was losing the corruption count until midway, when I thought that Binyamin finally passed me. He managed to win both blind bids, however, and so reduced his corruption to almost nothing. In the end, he beat me by a single victory point. Nadine had more victory points, but she lost by a single corruption point to mine.

Magic: the Gathering

Jon++, David+

I won a rare game sequence against David. We drafted from random cards. There are still so many of my later common cards that I just don't know that it's like opening fresh packs of a new expansion.

I somehow ended up playing blue/white, since I had enough fliers and creatures in them together with artifact creatures. I splashed black for a swampwalker and sunburst payments.

David played his usual Black and a second color red, because he managed to steal all the direct damage cards during the draft. Nevertheless, my deck was able to get out and get around defenses better than his could.

Bridge

Ben, Nadine, Binyamin, Jon/David

While playing Magic, David or I would fill in for the fourth hand in bridge. I didn't pay much attention to what was happening, however, and whenever it came to playing, the dummy would take over the hand.