December 22, 2010

Participants: Jon, Gili

Weird to only have one guest.

1955

Jon+, Gili

Gili requested this, since she only played half a game with Nadine last time. After an email or two with the designer I finally got the rules right: I had thought you could add multiple cards and also get the +1 bonus when playing in an area matching the card flags and also containing your spy. The correct rules - either a single bonus card OR a +1 - made blocking easier, and thus made the special abilities of the cards stronger. Gili likes the game.

After three games, I have yet to use most of the abilities, and some of them I find rather anemic. Scratch scratch. This may be a case of group-think. There's something flat about the game. It's nice and all, and it's quick and playable, but it doesn't seem to have a story arc. Maybe I just haven't hit it, yet.

Schotten Totten

Gili+, Jon+

I taught this to Gili. Again, after downloading files from BGG, I finally played this with the correct rules: we completely screwed up the special cards the first two times I played.

We started with no special cards. We exhausted the deck, and the score was 4 Gili to 3 me. Gili's final card play gave each of us a stone.

We played a second time using the special cards. Used correctly, they're not as unbalancing as I had feared.

Race For The Galaxy

Jon 61, Gili 29

I previously thought that this was a good game marred by the ability for one person to ram through the game end, depriving most strategies of viability and the game of much of its fun. I know other games that suffer from the same problem.

When that doesn't happen in this game, as it didn't in ours, the game is quite interesting. I've never been very good at it. Which makes my blowout victory here a surprise.

I started with a first round 6 point development, the one that gives a -2 discount for all other developments. Add to that some military strength and my game strategy was essentially locked in. The rest was just fishing for cards.

Gili played something more diverse, but never got enough shipping strength to force through to the game end that way.

August 03, 2010

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Gili, Gili child, Binyamin, Rivka, Zvi Yehuda, David K, Avraham

Game night was moved to Tuesday again, since I was expecting to be out of town on Wednesday evening. Being summer vacation, several attendees brought their young children with them. Also, as has happened a number of times in the last year or so, I didn't take any notes, so this report will be somewhat hazy.

Nile

Binyamin, Rivka, Zvi Yehuda, Gili, Jon

Nile is a new game from Minion Games. The publisher sent me a copy to review, which you can find soon on Purple Pawn.

In the first game, we forgot to mix in the used Flood cards with the discarded cards. Binyamin still insisted that we quit after the second run through the deck. He wasn't impressed with the lack of control or meaningful decisions.

The younger kids liked the game and wanted to play again.

David 2/3/3/3/3, Jon 1/2/2/3/4, Avraham 0/3/3/3/4

I thought the game might be less random with perhaps with more meaningful decisions in three player rather than five player. It was a bit better, but not especially. This time we played an entire game through. Turns became rather repetitive, and were not too engaging. Occasionally we had to make a semi-meaningful decision between two options. It's possible that we missed some strategies.

Actually, in retrospect, none of us tried a strategy of building up many cards before playing, which might work. Possibly I would try the game one more time to try that out.

But, as I said, the game is quite random, and wasn't too engaging, so I'm not sure I will. However, the younger kids still enjoyed it.

Tribune

Binyamin+, Rivka, Zvi Yehuda, Gili, Nadine

Binyamin won. They played an easy variant.

Magic: the Gathering

Jon+, David+

David and I drafted from an uninspiring set of cards. I ended up with solid White, no Blue, but an equal number of support from the other three colors. After assessing the worth of the colors, I ended up with White/Green and a splash of Red. My mana curve was terrible, as nearly everything I had cost 4 to cast. In the two games I played, I drew perfect mana distribution, but rarely ever saw a Green card.

David played Black/Red, and, as usual, his most annoying threat was a Black pump creature.

In the first game, I brought out solid white cards and eventually hit 8 mana. David was just too slow. In the second game, I didn't get to 8 mana and I spent a lot of time tossing little guys in the way of a big Black creature. Until I got out the Droning Bureaucrats. David's Black creature didn't allow him to attack with any other creature, so all of his other guys were useless. And my Bureaucrats canceled his Black creature every round, but at the expense of using up 5 mana each round. Which put us at a standstill for several rounds.

Finally, just to relieve the tedium, I disrupted the stalemate, but it ended up with me tossing out some more fodder, him killing his Black guy so he could attack with his other creatures, and him finally overrunning me.

Naturally, my very next pick would have allowed me to kill his last guy, and possibly come back. However, by that point, he also had more things to cast and we were only about 5 cards from the end of the deck, so I might just have decked myself in the end.

Steam

Binyamin, Rivka, Zvi Yehuda, Avraham

I taught this to all of them. Binyamin prefers Age of Steam or Railroad Tycoon, and wasn't impressed with this game, a decision he made before he even started playing. For whatever reason, they all stopped the game after two rounds.

R-Eco

David 18, Jon 17, Avraham -3

Although I usually enjoy this little game - one of the better filler games - I found this session even better than usual. At several points I felt like there were some tough and important choices to make, and that I had some control over the results. This is largely due to it being a three player, rather than a five player, game.

We play with the chips all randomized and in random piles, so you never know what color or number will come up next on a pile. I chose to dump early in order to collect a few early high valued chips. David caught up fairly quickly, however. In the end, we both had dumped the same amount, but, because he was the one to end the game, he had a point more than me in chips. If it had made it to my turn, I would have taken the chip and won, instead.

Race for the Galaxy

Binyamin+, Rivka, Zvi Yehuda

Binyamin at least had played this before, though he asked a number of rules questions to me during the game. He won, of course.

September 23, 2009

Participants: Jon, David, Emily, Nadine, Bill, Avraham

A fine collection of nice people for gaming.

Dominion

Nadine 48, Jon 39, Emily 28, David 14

First play for Emily. This seems to have become the default filler game, though it's a tad long for a filler. And it's nearly non-interactive, the way racing games tend not to be.

We played with: Envoy, Mine, Moneylender, Adventurer, Thief, Festival, Workshop, Market, Militia, Moat.

I'm still unsure what it was that happened to David on his first few rounds, but he somehow didn't get what he wanted, and then declared that there was absolutely no way he could win the game anymore. He spent the rest of the game taking Coppers and Estates. Perhaps he can elucidate.

Emily took Mines and Thieves. She played Thief a few times, but even though my deck was stuffed full of Golds and Silvers, she only managed to trash one of my Silvers, and the rest of the times only Coppers. She, Nadine, and I also took Militias. Nadine also took many Festivals and Moats to draw cards and protect against Militias. This was the winning strategy.

I knew that my Festivals wouldn't draw cards, but somehow, instead of taking either Moats or Envoys, I bought Golds and Adventurers. It looked decent, but not enough to beat Nadine.

Odin's Ravens

Bill 4, Avraham 3

I introduced the game to Bill and then he and Avraham played one round. They opted not to continue. It's kind of an "eh" game.

Antike

Jon 9, Avraham 6, Bill 6

Yay, I got to play Antike again. Antike is simply the best "warfare"-lite game, in that it has the elements of a war game, and the tactics and strategies that implies, but a) with no dice, and b) with victory points that do not require any combat to achieve. By setting the win condition one victory point less than suggested, occasional skirmishes occur and combat always looms, but it is minimal.

Instead, the game requires you to focus on the points you need to win, and not just concentrate on building up an impressive armed force. Just like Cities and Knights of Catan, a large army is nice, but it's not necessarily the quickest way to victory.

Avraham discovered this. At 5 points, I was already pretty much set on where my remaining 4 points would come from. Avraham was behind me in points, and already at 15 cities, but still building more troops and trying to conquer more areas of the board. I suggested to him that this was the slow way to do things, and that turned out to be true.

He also lost a temple when he calculated incorrectly that I couldn't take it out. He forgot, or didn't realize, that you could use one set of troops to clear out obstructing armed forces, and then a different set of troops to pass over the now cleared area to attack. In most situations, I would have told him this. But seeing as he was so aggressive to me during the first half of the game, I merely asked him a number of times if he was sure that he wanted to end his turn before I played.

My first moves were: marble, temple on gold, gold, and know-how. I ended with five out of the five earned victory points in Known-hows (that shouldn't have happened), as well as one destroyed temple, three temples, seven seas, and five cities.

Princes of Florence

David 77, Nadine 61, Emily 58

First play for Emily, and another three-player game of PoF, which doesn't quite follow the rules and expectations of those familiar with four or five player PoF. There are so many good things in the auctions, that bidding is never that high.

On the other hand, it still isn't a good idea to let one person get three early Jesters, which is what I got last game and what David got this game. He even picked up a fourth on his last turn.

Race For the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm

Avraham 60, Nadine 35, Bill 31, Emily 22

First play for Emily (first play of any RftG game). First play of the expansion for Nadine and Bill.

RftG is kind of fun, but I'm concerned about the amount of luck in the game, and the mechanic of being able to end the game early by super building annoys me. It's very convoluted, so I'm willing to play it, but not overly thrilled.

The expansion with its missions and some changes in the cards looks like it might be a somewhat better version of the game, though it looks over-priced for what you get in components.

Magic: the Gathering

Jon+, David+

David and I foisted them all onto RftG so we could Rochester draft and play this. A good time, as usual, though the mana distribution problems in the game still suck. My homemade fix is still the best way I know to ease the problem. (Each player may once, up until turn five, either randomly toss a land out of the game to pick a random non-land from his deck, or randomly toss a non-land out of the game to randomly pick a land from his deck).

This allowed me in the first game to make a go at the game, despite an initial land glut. I even won. In the second game, I had land, but none of the color of the cards in my hand, so I still got mana screwed. My fix is meant to ease the problem, but not guarantee a great hand each time.

I played R/G/W, with some decent creatures and red and white removal. David played B/G/U. I don't recall what he had, but it looked like an inferior deck to mine, generally speaking.

November 19, 2008

Participants: Nadine, Gili, David K

Still a small group of good friends.

Trias

Jon 21, Gili 17, David 16, Nadine 15

We spent some time looking at the new games, wondering which one to learn on the fly, before I remembered that I kind of learned the rules to this already. Also, it would be a quick game. Or, it should be a quick game.

Trias is a lovely little game of drifting tiles and migrating dinosaur herds. There is nearly no luck, but a small level of chaos, as the other players will make moves that derail your plans.

The drifting tile mechanism is simply awesome. Islands are created, reconnect, split, and so on in lovely patterns, in ways that give fantastic opportunities for tactical play. Elegant. There is also ample room for strategy, as you have to decide whether to form your own areas or infringe on others. Proper first placement is critical for this.

Like Dvonn, on first play the beginning of the game seems very random. As the game went on, and I "got it", I can see now how little randomness there really is. Unfortunately, my fellow game players either didn't "get it", or didn't find it very interesting. They complained throughout the game and were happy to see it end.

I thought it was excellent, as you can tell.

David started spreading out before everyone else, which made me realize how limited my areas of control were. So, rather than reproducing like everyone else was, I spread out. As a result, I had babies left in my supply for most of the game, while the others ran out. That's when we realized the tactical opportunities to kill off your babies, so you have more to place. But only one player actually managed to do that.

We had an amazingly large island at one point, but it eventually split. Even so, I won the game by controlling a land mass of 10 hexes.

The game may be even more fun if you add special genes like the ones in Evo and Primordial Soup.

Year of the Dragon

Nadine 103, Gili 102, David 102, Jon 82

I would like to say that YotD is kind of a dull game once you realize that you have no chance of winning, which was the fact in my case. However, Nadine and Gili also thought they had no chance of winning, as David took strong books and jumped over 20 points ahead by the last round. We were all resigned to his victory.

In particular, I knew I had no chance of catching up, as I had taken a similar strategy of "books", but David was always going before me, and, though I could pay to take books once in a while, I couldn't catch up.

The board layout didn't help with this, as the plague was the second to last event, so I had to keep the stupid medicine men the whole game. And the tax collection was last, so using my last bit of money for books meant sacrificing people; I did it anyway, netting a few more points than I lost.

But Nadine and Gili played different strategies, ending the game with 18 people points and 15 buddha points in Gili's case, and twenty people points and 12 buddha points in Nadine's case. David ended with only a single person.

The tallies were then David at 102, Gili and Nadine at 100. Then Nadine and Gili cashed in their final chips and money, and Nadine eked out the victory. A rousing finish for them. But not for me.

Race for the Galaxy

David 41, Nadine 40, Jon 38

This game somewhat annoyed me with its ability to run out with quick building by one player. I decided to simply let that be and play with that, anyway. Once I accepted it, the game was a little more enjoyable, because I wasn't playing against the nature of the game, but with it.

As a result, I didn't score too badly. I had 3 6-cost buildings out, although they each only gave me around 4 points. David was able to consume twice for 10 points each time. Nadine was close behind. Luckily, she didn't get her "Brown strategy" going.

All of us are still convinced that the Military strategy can't really compete.

September 3, 2008

Participants: Jon, Gili, David K, Nadine, Tal

Low attendance, for some reason. Summer over? School starting?

Industria

Nadine 56, David 55, Gili 35, Jon 33

Scores are approximate. Nadine and David almost tied, but Nadine had one last point from her cash surplus.

Second play for me and David, first play for Nadine and Gili. Nadine complained a lot, and in the end said that she didn't like it too much. Gili thought it was a fun game and looked happy to play it again sometime. I concurred. David finds it ok. Note the correlation between doing well and not particularly caring for the game.

Last time I played I concentrated on the technologies. This time I decided against concentrating on them, and in any case the other players severely blocked my attempts to create connections with them. In the meantime, Nadine had five technology connections.

I also decided not to try too much for the bonus tiles. David ended up with four of them, and tons of corresponding buildings, which gave him some twenty points in bonus tile points.

David also secured many of the goods producing factories, which is what I was looking to do, but somehow didn't get to doing. But then he thought he ended up taking too many of them, even in the latter part of the game. It could be that the good producing buildings are more key at the beginning than at the end. That's what seemed to be the case, anyway.

So what were Gili and I doing while Nadine and David were mapping out nice strategies (Nadine denies doing so, but she did, anyway)? Floundering around, mostly. It seems that a balanced strategy doesn't work so well.

Nadine adds: Industria, like many games, would be fine if we didn't have better games around, and there's not really a buildup as there is in PR.

Tichu

David/Nadine+, Jon/Tal

David opened with a Tichu, and they also ended up with all 100 points. I made a Tichu later, but had -10 points, so still lost ground. As we were losing by over 200 points, I decided to call a Grand Tichu, but couldn't quite pull it off. And I shouldn't forget to mention that David played some excellent card play during one of the hands. Perhaps he can describe it.

Race for the Galaxy

Jon 40*, David 33, Nadine 30

I have the same problem with RftG that I have with Lost Valley: it is easy for one player to push forwards and end the game early. It makes the game rather boring. There has to be a mechanism to prevent this. You can hasten the end of the game in Puerto Rico, but not quite as egregiously.

In our game, we all decided that the military starting world is too weak, so we ditched it. This meant that no one played military worlds at all. Which is another problem, although since we always need cards for tossing, not too bad.

My score is actually not correct. I realized close to the end of the game that a building that I built that was giving me 2 VP for consuming was really supposed to give me 2 cards. That changed not only the VP scores, but how I would have been playing the roles. Ah well.

June 25, 2008

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Yitzchak, Jonathan, Avraham, Sarah, David K, Tal

Avraham came once before, and he brought his fiance Sarah (for real).

Tichu

Jon, Tal, Nadine, Jonathan

Having just blogged about Tichu, I decided to get some people to play it. Tal is always up for a game, and she always pauses dramatically before she has to play something bad. Nadine doesn't care for Tichu, as it's strictly luckier than Bridge, so why bother playing Tichu?

Tal and I were trailing when other people arrived and we broke to play some regular games.

Puerto Rico

Yitzchak 53, Jonathan 51, Nadine 40

Jonathan's first play, and Nadine taught the game in her usual way.

Nadine writes: Jonathan should have won. I should have shipped instead of Mayoring which would have given me the same three points but blocked Yitzchak because there was only one ship. I had Fortress, Yitzchak had Custom's House, so he would have had only 49. Jonathan had 3 big buildings and a coffee monopoly; I had only the three lower goods.

Race For The Galaxy

Nadine 38, Yitzchak 37, Jonathan 30

I have no info about how this game went, but if Nadine won, it must have been with brown cards.

Tikal

Avraham 103, Jon 101, David 100, Sara 89

This was Avraham and Sara's first play. This is another nice game that I'd been wanting to get it out onto the table for a long while, but which too many people prefer not to play for some reason. Our game was incredibly long (four hours), but it felt only a bit too long. Three hours would have been just fine (two even better, of course). The length was due to some distractions, some very long thinking, and learning how to play for the first time.

Four players is a very crowded game experience, and I didn't have nearly enough guys or tents on the board, but I still did ok. Most of the scoring comes from finding the clever tactic; the remainder of the time you're putting your tendrils out hoping that that opportunity will come.

The highest scoring temples only went to 8.

Magic

David+++, Jon

We drafted. I thought my deck was decent. I get the feeling that I'm just a sucky player.

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.

May 28, 2008

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Bill, Gili, Binyamin, Max, Sergei, David K, Yitzchak, Dylan, Rachel A

A bustling game night. We discovered that you can't do role playing in the same room as board gaming.

It's Alive

Bill 55, Gili 47, Jon 33

First play for Bill, so he was happy to win. He ended up flipping four of the six coffins and no villagers, while I flipped four of the six villages. With brutally unfair luck as that, it's hard to compete.

Notre Dame

Binyamin 64, Nadine 47, Yitzchak 45

They played this as an opener, although it's kind of long as an opener.

Zertz

Binyamin+, Sergei

First play for Sergei.

Dungeon Twister

Binyamin, David

Binyamin introduced this game to David, who decided to forfeit mid-game, as he really doesn't care for the combat mechanic of blind bidding.

Geschenkt

Max 22, Jon 30, Gili 35, Bill, Sergei

First plays for all but myself and Gili. Gili pulled an inside straight. The second time she needed an inside straight, Sergei was forced to ruin her (and his) plans as he had no cash to push off the card. Max enjoyed the game and plans to make a copy to play at his own group.

Universalis / Children of Fire

Bill (GM), Jon, Dylan, Max, Gili

Nadine opted not continue last time, and we thought rightly that Gili would join. She did, but the setup took too long for her, or she was just too tired, and she left before ever really doing anything. Max stuck around for longer, but it appeared that he was not really into combat-less role playing, as he kept trying to kidnap or cast spells on humans, which is not the point of the CoF theme. He also bowed out mid-game.

Dylan and I meanwhile had a good time, and owing it to just being the two of us and our previous first experience, we made some story progress. Cthulhu or space aliens or some combination are sexually attacking the teenagers of Wichita trying to get them, or to get, pregnant, for some reason.

Princes of Florence

Yitzchak 76, Nadine 69, Sergei 65

I think this was Sergei's first play.

Race for the Galaxy

David 43, Binyamin 42, Jon 30

I don't seem to have a handle on this game yet, as not only do I keep losing, I lose soundly. We were originally going to play a longer game with more VPs and building capacity, but I could already tell mid-game that the end result wasn't going to change significantly so there wasn't much point. I may have been wrong, but I think that extending the game essentially swings the game to the VP producers.

Magic: the Gathering

David+, Jon

I dealt each of us 60 random cards and we built decks without knowing if we would play. In the end, we squeaked in a game.

The game was kind of a slog. Both of us has unblockables, and each was able to do roughly two points of damage per turn. Unfortunately for me, David started his damage earlier. Near the end, when I could finally take out his attacker, he was able to counter my spell. And that was pretty much that.

Puerto Rico

Sergei/Jon 61, Nadine 59, Max/Jon 53, Rachel 44

This was first plays for both Max and Sergei, but they had to leave near the end of the game to catch a ride with David. I took a basic look at their boards to help finish the game, and I mostly crafted and shipped them to victory.

May 21, 2008

Participants: Jon, Bill, Nadine, Jonathan, Sergei, Daniel, Max, Binyamin, Ari

Bill came back even though we didn't have a quorum for role playing again. Luckily, he plays board games, too. Max came a few times before with Jack (who only came a few times). Max and Jack were running a Russian-speaking game group in downtown Jerusalem for a while, but it petered out. Max brought with him Daniel and Sergei.

Robo Rally

Ari+, Jon, Binyamin, Jonathan, Max

This was a first game for Max and Binyamin. I picked a single board and a single flag. But it was the Maelstrom board, nearly entirely covered with concentric circles of walkways moving at different speed and depositing into a central pit. And the flag started out on one of these walkways, so moved one space each phase, too.

Needless to say, it looked like it was going to be wild and fun. For some reason, I calculated that the best way to get to the flag was to skirt the opposite direction to the walkway's movement around the edge of the board and then try to rush in. Ari, instead, jumped onto the faster moving walkway which took him right opposite the slower moving flag in one turn. He won on turn two.

Jon+, Nadine, Sergei, Bill

Later in the evening we played again. This was the first play for Sergei, and second (?) for Bill.

We also used a single board and flag, but a simpler one, and the flag was stationary at the far corner. This time I won in two turns, by virtue of having hands full of Move 2 and Move 3 cards in both turns.

El Grande

Nadine 122, Daniel/Jon 104, Sergei 103, Bill 98

This was the first game for Sergei and Daniel, I believe. Daniel unfortunately had to leave after the second scoring round, so I took over while also playing Santiago.

When I took over, Nadine was well ahead of every other player, so she obviously neglected to inform them that she usually wins big time and they should all gang up on her. By the time I got there, it was too late. On round 8 she took an interim scoring opportunity which essentially sealed the game.

Round 3 scores: Nadine 37, Bill 37, Sergei 41, Daniel 35
Round 6 scores: Nadine 89, Bill 73, Sergei 74, Daniel 77

Saikoro

Jon+, Ari

After Ari won the first game of Robo Rally, we played two more rounds to see who would come in second. To keep Ari occupied, I played Saikoro with him.

It's still a lovely game. I had no trouble cornering Ari for the win, as it was his first game.

Santiago

Binyamin 72, Jon 62, Ari 45, Jonathan 43, Max 43

I love this game and have wanted to get it out for a long time, but I haven't had the opportunity since some of the other club players don't like it. But, with a new audience, I was finally able to do it. This was the first play for Max, and second plays for Ari and Jonathan.

Both Binyamin and I got in on an early potato field, while I also got an early sugar field, and he got a later pepper field. He had one more guy on the potato field, however, and managed his cash just a bit better, so as to earn a victory.

Race for the Galaxy

Binyamin 23, Jon 18, Nadine 18

Yes, very low scores, entirely because Nadine built low cost buildings on every single building phase, ending the game in some eight or nine rounds. Nadine knows the brown building strategy and isn't happy when she doesn't get those buildings. Binyamin says that he has tried the game with variants where you build up to twenty buildings (instead of twelve) and increase the vp chips, which he likes better than the standard game, as it ends too quickly.

It's Alive

Sergei+++, Jonathan+, Max+

When they finished playing this, I thought they had played only one game and I asked their score. When they said that Sergei won with three, and Jonathan had one, and Max had one, I was confused, until I discovered that that was the number of games they had played, not the point counts. They played five games back to back in the time it took us to play Race for the Galaxy.

And after all that, Max said that he found the game somewhat repetitive. I'm guessing they liked it enough to play it five times, however.

Bridge

Jon/Max, Binyamin/Nadine

We got in two hand of Bridge at the end of game night. This was Max's first plays, and he kept comparing it to games he was familiar with.

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).

April 09, 2008

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Gili, Yitzchak, Jonathan, Saarya, Tal, Dylan, Binyamin

I was late getting home, so a few patient participants had to wait on the steps outside my house for 45 minutes. Sorry! This is the first group in a long time in which my kids Saarya and Tal joined us; briefly, in Tal's case.

El Grande: King and Intriguant

Jon 137, Nadine 133, Dylan 106, Saarya 103

Saarya chose El Grande, and I decided to try the expansion one more time. The last time we played, we found a number of things rather frustrating. This time we implemented a few house rules in an attempt to fix these irritations, but they ended up causing nearly s many irritations.

The first was to eliminate all cards that can send caballeros back to the provinces, namely cads 30, 50, and 70. It's not a problem when such an event happens once or twice a game, as it does when we play the regular game. It's that it happens in every single round when we play the expansion, which limits the available strategic options for most players. The end result of the variant is that players ran out of caballeros on the last round of play; this happens in regular El Grande sometimes, but not too often.

The second was that we allowed the first player to choose whether or not to do the King power or the card power, and the last player to choose whether or not to do the Intrigue power or the card power. In fact, that is the correct way to play for three players, but we were four players. The reason we did that is that last time it was too unpredictable what you would be able to do when it was your turn, which again lead to a loss in strategic options. The end result of the variant, however, meant that the king didn't move an awful lot during the game. Which wasn't really so bad, come to think of it.

The expansion is far more chaotic than the regular game. Again, it's one thing for an effect to happen once or twice a game, and another for it to happen four or five turns in a row. It was a challenging game, but I'm not sure it was quite as good.

In our game, I started with a 17 point lead on the first round and kept it for the remainder of the game. Nadine was at my heels, while Dylan and Saarya remained neck and neck but well behind us. After the first scoring, I led 38 to 34, with Dylan and Saarya at 24 each. Nothing had changed by the second scoring: Jon 95, Nadine 89, Dylan 62 and Saarya 60.

Near the very end of the game is seemed that Nadine was finally going to catch and surpass me, but my little second and third place scoring in a few minor regions kept me ahead. Dylan and Saarya didn't think they could catch up, so they were just jockeying not to be last. However, Dylan actually had a pretty amazing comeback at one point and was only a few points behind Nadine for a round.

Taj Mahal

Gili 47, Jonathan 45, Binyamin 38, Yitzchak 36

Jonathan's first game, and I think possibly Gili's first win.

Race for the Galaxy

Yitzchak 36, Binyamin 35, Jonathan/Nadine 31

Jonathan's first game. Binyamin and Yitzchak both love the game. Nadine took over for Jonathan at the very end of the game when he had to go.

Jon 46, Nadine 32, Binyamin 29

We played a game of this after they finished theirs. Binyamin was convinced that you need to have three 6-point buildings to win. He ended up having 3 of them, but they were all pretty worthless buildings. Nadine had dozens of 6-pointers in her hand and built 4 of them, also all pretty much worthless. Meanwhile, I couldn't find one to save my butt, of course, so I had to go a different route.

I was essentially the only one able to consume goods for points, even by the end of the game. So I just kept doing that, netting 8 points every other turn and building whatever I had available while they were developing. I was able to build something because I was also pulling a few cards in for producing and consuming each. I ended up building a 6-pointer: the military power card which was worth the two points printed on it. I had 29 consuming points, which is what ended the game.

R-Eco

Dylan+, Nadine/Tal, Jon

Dylan's first game. Nadine started off playing while she was finishing off RftG, and Tal took over for her to finish the game. Neither Nadine nor Dylan dumped at all, while I dumped 9 cards. Ouch. Even so, and even with a -2 chip, I still ended up with 7 points at the end of the game, which I thought was pretty impressive.

It wasn't quite enough, however, as they ended up with 9 and 11 points, or something like that, which included their points for not dumping.

April 02, 2008

Participants: Jon, David K, Gili, Yitzchak, Jonathan, Eran

Jonathan is a first-timer from Jerusalem, first time to the club and first time gamer. Eran is a very experienced gamer I met in Dallas at the first BGG.con. He lived in Dallas for several years and is now back in Israel, but he lives in Carmiel so is unlikely to come often. He was in the Tel Aviv area, however, so he make the trip.

R-Eco

Jon 7, David, Jonathan, Eran

I don't remember the other player's results, but the highest was 3. This continues to be a nice little filler.

Jon 8, David 7, Yitzchak

So much so that we played it again later in the evening. Yitzchak managed to avoid dumping in the first half of the game, but then dumped tons and tons in the latter half, ending up negative something.

Robo Rally

Jonathan+, Eran, Jon

I thought this could make a nice second game for Jonathan after R-Eco, and I don't often get to play it. It's better with more players, but it was still fun with three.

We played with just two boards and two flags to touch. Each of us also had an option which didn't get lost when you died.

I had a stunning first two rounds and ended up on the first flag. Unfortunately, on my next round I received 8 points of damage. I crawled out of the laser turrets and shut down the next turn. Meanwhile, Eran was doing about average and managed to reach the first flag. then he sat on it while Jonathan tried to touch it. He couldn't, since the flag was sitting in a corner near two walls, making it impossible for Eran to be pushed off of it.

Somehow, Eran eventually moved and Jonathan fell into a pit and had to start over. It didn't look two difficult to get to the second flag, as there was a row of conveyors leading very close to it, so I told Jonathan to be happy if he even got to the first flag by the time the game was over.

Eran and I ended up conflicting, however. While we were running around in circles hoping for just the right thing, Jonathan got to the first flag and worked his way to the second. Eran managed to kill himself in the meantime, and in the end it was Jonathan and me in contention for the second flag. And Jonathan won. An amazing comeback.

Notre Dame

David+, Yitzchak, Gili

I don't know the exact scores, but David was at least ten points ahead of Nadine, who was well ahead of Gili. Gili, through too much concentration on Notre Dame, found herself at one point with no cubes on the board and no cubes in her provinces, so literally had nothing to do unless she acquired the trusted friend card. She didn't even have the cash to use on the personalities in order to get herself another cube.

Settlers of Catan

Eran+, Jonathan, Gili

In this game, Gili would have been doing fine but the robber blocked her 6 wood production for several turns, allowing Eran to move ahead. Jonathan started off slow, but made some gains by the time the game ended.

Race for the Galaxy

David 51, Yitzchak 47, Jon 46

Yitzchak's first game. He's a San Juan nut, so it is no surprise that this went over well with him.

I went pretty straight military. I don't think this is a great strategy, since it doesn't give you an engine for acquiring cards (excepting the occasional windfall world, making it hard to get the six point developments. Sure, I got a 7 point military world out and a few 5 pointers, but that doesn't compare to the three 10 point devels that the other players got out (I got out two).

Yitzchak did fairly well with both shipping and six point devels. In fact, the last one he dropped gave him 3 bonus points each for three specific cards in play, and he had every one of them; a total of 13 points for that devel.

David had not only shipping points, but a card drawing engine whenever he produced, eventually drawing six cards every time he produced. That made him happy regardless of what phase occurred.

Mr Jack

Jonathan (Detective), Eran (Criminal)

I don't know what happened with this game.

March 26, 2008

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

Another typical, lightly attended game night.

Race for the Galaxy

Nadine 45, Jon 40, Binyamin 39, Ben 30

It may be San Juan on steroids, but it's a lot more interesting. The ability to ensure that you can always get the phase you want and the privilege, too, gives you control. The Production and Consumption phases only doing things for you if you have the abilities to utilize them is hard to wrap your head around, but cool. And the seemingly vast number of different paths to victory is intriguing.

The latter may simply be due to the fact that I've only played twice. It may be that a few paths dominate others. Your ability to choose which path is severely curtailed based on the cards you draw. Therefore, if a few paths really don't work versus others, you're not going to win if you're unlucky, which could make any particular game frustrating.

In San Juan, there are not that many different final destinations that will win. In this game, it seems that you can work with not only different synergies but different end points. I'm eager to try again.

In our previous game, Nadine killed us with a straight Brown strategy. Luckily, she didn't get the cards for that one again. Neither I nor Ben could pull a 6 point card to save our skin, but I realized in mid-game that I was the only player producing goods; everyone else had windfall worlds. That's when I realized that I had to start shipping big time. It caught me up, although not enough to win.

The card that let's you build military worlds for discards instead of conquest is a super card, and also helped.

Year of the Dragon

Binyamin 114, David 104, Jon 97, Ben 79, Nadine 76

Binyamin taught us all this game, which turned out to be another excellent Euro strategy game. Binyamin claims that it's like a less lucky version of Notre Dame; I think that's a bit of a stretch.

Anyway, he neglected to mention how difficult the game is to those with the least initiative, so I started off feeling a crunch. On the other hand, Binyamin won even though he spent the last half of the game in last initiative place.

David tried a straight victory point through books approach, gaining 9 points every round for half the game and pulling way ahead of everyone else, and looked like he was headed to complete victory. But Binyamin's dragons were eventually giving him up to 7 points a round, and his people and statues added enough bonus to overtake David's lead at the end.

All in all, quite interesting.

Bridge

Ben/Binyamin 600, Jon/Nadine 130

We played a few rounds. Actually I played three hands, and Nadine played the fourth. Our biggest loss was down three doubled in the last hand.

March 12, 2008

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Gili, Bill, Binyamin, David

Bill is from Kansas City and just moved to Israel for one or two years with his wife. Both of them have RPG and board game experience. Bill and I had discussed starting up a new RPG campaign. Because he has to go back to the US several times over the next few months, each session was to be (is to be) a single night's play.

Unfortunately, his wife was held up negotiating a lease so she never got here, and Bill was called away to help right when we were going to start the RPG so we didn't get to play that this evening.

Race for the Galaxy

Nadine 72, Jon 38, Gili 32, Bill 30

This was everyone's first play except Nadine's. I only wanted to learn a few round before Bill got here but we ended up playing out the entire game. Even though I hadn't played before, I ended up explaining the game while Nadine piped in with strategy advice she learned from her previous game during the process.

First games are about learning the mechanics, so all of us were just playing around with the cards. In the meantime, Nadine built nothing but brown worlds and bonus cards. Not only did every building count for her three times at the end of the game, she was making 10 or 14 points during each consume phase. As you can see, she slaughtered us.

Meanwhile, I tossed out my early high point cards but then couldn't drawn them again later.

RftG is still a lot like San Juan, but I like the double building opportunities and the choice of trading or shipping which is missing from San Juan. While the interaction is pretty low, I can see how you get more when you start to think about what the other players are doing and how to thwart them. Still, it's pretty close to solitaire.

Once I know all the cards and abilities, it will remain to be seen whether the game is really any more complex than San Juan or if it will feel "played out" like San Juan does (at least until we get an expansion for it). As of now, I'm happy to play it again and several more times after that.

Magic: the Gathering

David+, Binyamin

David and Binyamin played this and were going to keep playing this if we had started our roleplaying. As it was we had to drag them away from it to play a five player game when Bill left.

David won by one point, I hear.

[DK: Binyamin was going to kill me on the next round (I had 2 life). I needed seven points of damage, but even with my humongous trample creature, I could only get through with six. Then I noticed a d6 which represented a piddly 1/1 token creature...]

Notre Dame

David 81, Nadine 77, Binyamin 68, Jon 55, Gili 41

Binyamin wanted to play Year of the Dragon but Gili didn't want to learn a new game and really wanted to play this.

I decided to give the Hotel area a go since it's obviously the worst area on the board and can't possibly win. I figured to at least try to see if I could do something useful with it. Unfortunately, conventional wisdom is correct and there is now way to make any use out of it. By the time you're up to three cubes, you've so fallen behind that you begin losing them to the rats or losing out on the rest of the bonuses everyone else is getting.

Meanwhile, David won with a straight VP area win, scoring the region three times in the last round (twice with cards, and once with a purchased favor).

[DK: FOUR times in the last round. Three with cards and once with a favor :-). With park, 8+7+6+5 for 26VP]

Nadine used a combination of money for Notre Dame and park bonuses; one early Notre Dame score shared with me helped her gain an early lead over David, but not enough. Binyamin tried park and VP scoring.

Mr Jack

Jon (Detective)+, Nadine (Criminal)

We played this while Binyamin and David finished up their Magic game and then while we played Bridge. I got two characters eliminated in round one, and then three more in rounds two and three. It was not hard to win in round five after that.

Bridge

Jon/David, Binyamin/Nadine

We played a few hands, all of which seemed to start with 1 club or a preempt.

March 05, 2008

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

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

Before the Wind

Binyamin 50, Nadine 44, Jon 36

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

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

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

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

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

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

Settlers of Catan

Ben+, Yardena, Yedidya, Yitzchak the Smaller

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

Arkham Horror

Yitzchak, Gili, Dylan, Jon (sort of)

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

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

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

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

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

Blue Moon

Ben, Jon

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

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

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

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

Race for the Galaxy

David 43, Binyamin 42, Nadine 33

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

Magic: the Gathering

David++, Jon

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

Bridge

Yitzchak, Ben, Nadine, Binyamin

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