August 24, 2011

Participants: Nadine, Gili, Eitan

Nadine takes over the session reports. Game night was at her house.

Emily wasn't feeling well, refua shlema!

Set

Nadine+, Gili, Eitan

Eitan arrived and joined when we were almost done.

A Touch of Evil

Nadine+, Gili, Eitan

Gili brought this, we'd played it once and she played it one other time. Eitan was interested in trying it. We all agreed it was anti-climactic, a lot of build-up for a 2-roll battle at the end. I was behind in cards and power, but was in the right position to be able to fight first, and the werewolf only had 5 combat. I almost lost, but someone else would have won if I hadn't tried. Gili bought the first Lair after it went down to cost 3, but couldn't reach the spot on her next turn despite having a 2 horse. I couldn't reach my spot either, but it was my turn next. Gili thinks the advanced game should be better.

Ra (my Lo Ra version)

Nadine 66, Eitan 31, Gili 19

I won due to experience and luck, first game for both Eitan and Gili. And I didn't remember the rules so well, we haven't played in years, so that affected my explanation and made the game harder for them. They liked the game, and understood it by the second round. We played a few things wrong, like allowing auctions after the last auction card, not playing disasters immediately, not bidding on just the money tile if there weren't other tiles, and not having an auction when the track was full. I remembered most of the correct rules but we had already started playing wrong so we continued.

June 22, 2011

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Gili, Binyamin, Tikva Shira

Nadine returned, as did Binyamin, giving us a more normal session than last week's.

As I noted on my blog, I will be moving to Raanana in August. The fate of the JSGC will be left in the hands of Nadine and Gili. Hopefully they will be able to keep it going while I'm gone (at least a year, maybe more).

Fairy Tale

Jon 39, Nadine 35, Gili 35

I saw that several of my cards were going to be worthless by the end of the game, so I was pretty sure I was going to lose. How did I win? Seven of the nine cards I scored averaged 6 points or so. Nadine and Gili had several cards that scored only 2 to 4 points each.

Navegador

Gili 70, Nadine 70, Binyamin 69, Tikva Shira 67, Jon 62

I requested this, since I loved it the one time I played it. Binyamin thoughtfully brought it. First play for everyone else except for Binyamin.

I may love it, but I'm also bad at it, or at least I'm bad at the strategy; the tactics I can handle. I bought an early ship-building house and had essentially no income for the next fifteen turns. Everyone else had little houses or colonies and raked in 100+ income on markets; I pulled in 20 or 30, and I couldn't afford to buy houses or colonies, which made is a catch-22. (Binyamin, with his extra sail action, swooped in and took the only colony I could have afforded.) I figured that this early mistake set me back about ten moves. And I barely even used that ship-building house during the game.

By the end of the game, when everyone else was pulling 250+ or more from markets, I was finally pulling around 100. I scored as well as I did because, other than that early mistake, I get the tactics of games like this. I can focus on points in a game rich with intriguing mechanics that distract from the end-scoring. As I said, I love the game. I just have to figure out how to play my start-game correctly.

T"S was the first to pull ahead in worker-building advancement, and Gili followed. Nadine had the most ships and the most blue disks. Binyamin had the most colonies.

Set

Jon 12, Tikva Shira 8, Nadine 4, Binyamin

There wasn't time for a full game, so we let T"S choose a short game. Binyamin would have gotten more points if he had been actually playing. Which is odd, since he's pretty colorblind.

Bridge

Jon/Nadine 550, Binyamin/Tikva Shira 0

Three hands of Bridge. Nadine and I set them one trick in two hands, and we bid and made one game in the other.

May 05, 2010

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

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

Set

Tal, Hershel, Gili

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

In the Shadow of the Emperor

Nadine 23, Hershel 19, Gili 16, Jon 15

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

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

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

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

Anyhoo ...

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

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

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

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

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

R-Eco

Shirley, Bill, Liza

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

Container

Shirley, Bill, Liza, Abraham

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