November 10, 2010

Participants: Jon, Mace, Nadine, Gili, Nechama, Elijah, Rachel A

Looks like we're stuck with small game nights for a while. I apologize that I'm writing this without notes right now, so I'm missing some of the scores and the names of the new Puerto Rico expansion buildings.

Yinsh

Jon 3, Mace 0

I taught this to Mace, who didn't take well to it.

El Grande

Mace 98, Jon 94, Nadine, Elijah, Gili/Nechama

First plays for Mace and Nechama. Nechama actually played as a team with Gili. Our group tends to run long with certain games, and this is one of them. It took about three and a half hours.

Nadine has a habit of winning this game, which I tell everyone whenever she plays, much to her annoyance. She believes that people will prjudicely gang up on her as a result, which they don't really do until she starts winning. I haven't looked at the records recently, but I'm pretty sure she really does win most of her games. She started off ok in this one, too, but eventually fell behind.

I usually try for a "second-place in many regions" strategy, which works right until the card that scores only the first place in every region shows up and kills me. In this game I actually didn't have that many cubes on the board at all. Somehow, through the judicious placing in lightly contested areas and some interim scoring cards, it looked like I was winning about mid-way during the game. Of course, in El Grande, it's better to be second place, because first place gets ganged up on. And wouldn't you know, second place Mace pulled to a close victory in the end.

Mace poured a lot of his cubes into the Castillo. He, and Nadine and Gili/Nechama, contested heavily for a few places, sometimes with 10 or more cubes each in one area. Actually, the only reason I did as well as I did was choosing the right place for my Castillo placements on rounds 3 and 6; I chose wrongly on round 9, which cost me 3 points (just shy of winning, anyway).

Puerto Rico + Nobles expansion

Mace 49, Jon 46, Nadine, Rachel

The three of us are far more experienced at Purerto Rico than Mace is, but a) that doesn't mean that we win, since we all hold each other in check, and b) this was the first play of the Nobles expansion for all of us. I used every nobles building, using the standard non-expansion buildings for the other slots.

It first seemed that the nobles are an absolute must-have. Mayor was taken nearly every single round. And some of the buildings that used nobles, especially in combination, were pretty strong. For instance, the 7 and 8 cost buildings together gave you +1 noble each mayor phase and +$1 for each noble you had each craftsman phase, respectively. That's strong. But it's not really stronger than a Factory/Harbor combination.

The 2 cost building that lets you trade a $1 for a plantation or a plantation for a $1 was very weak. Very very weak, even with the 4 cost building that gives you points for having the least number of plantations. On the other hand, the 3 cost building that gives you either a $1 or a points each round was very strong. Very, very strong. On the other hand, both of the players who took that building - Rachel and Nadine - lost, and both of them were corn players, too.

Nadine shipped good points with the 6 point semi-harbor. But in the end, Mace's and my buildings proved to be the major point earners.

July 07, 2010

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Miriam, Abraham, Tal

Light night. Gili is planning for her daughter's bat mitzvah.

Dominion/Intrigue/Seaside

Jon 48, Nadine 44

Nadine may actually have had 45; she forgot to count her cards for Gardens.

Kingdoms: Village, Woodcutter, Feast, Gardens, Council Room, Secret Chamber, Scout, Trading Post, Duke, Ghost Ship

Two VP cards makes Scout an interesting buy. One Trading Post, one Council Room, one Woodcutter, two Villages, and Feasts completed my deck. Nadine doesn't play trashing cards, so she skipped the Trading Post in favor of more Council Rooms; she also didn't get Scouts. I'm surprised she did as well as she did.

Endeavor

Nadine 53, Miriam 49, Jon 47, Abraham 43

First plays for Miriam and Abraham. Nadine and I had played this before and had not been impressed; not bad, but not quite gelled, we thought. After this play, we both felt a but better about it, but still think there are too many positive and negative ideas to juggle on each turn, for not enough reward. I would compare it unfavorably to Oltre Mare, which has the same juggling idea with less variables.

Abraham started out strong, but lost tempo mid-game. I started off weak without the brick building, since bricks were in short supply and it then took me some time to be able to afford a building of level 3. Nadine was actually the only one to buy a level 5 building, though Abraham also got to that level at one point, while Miriam reached it on the last round (which gave her points, at least).

I sat in front of Miriam, and consequently she felt that I was purposely acting to thwart her the whole game, to the point that she actually got frustrated. On her last play she deliberately thwarted me to prevent me from getting three points while getting two for herself. It took some time to convince her that, in fact, she had a better play elsewhere that netted her 5 or 6 additional points, and I could get 2 points elsewhere, so I would only end up losing 1, anyway. Reluctantly, she changed her play, and ended up beating me with those few points. I think that ameliorated her.

Meanwhile, I sat behind Abraham and felt that he was thwarting me the whole game, but I took it in stride.

Yinsh

Abraham+, Miriam

I reminded Abraham how to play, and Miriam tried it for the first time. However, she doesn't really like abstracts, so I guess she won't play it again. Abraham removed two disks, and then Miriam took off two. The last one went back and forth until Abraham found a subtle forking play.

Tichu

Jon/Tal 455, Abraham/Miriam 145

We played four hands. In the second one, Miriam and I both called Tichu, when Tal was planning on calling it originally. I managed to go out first with the Dog, and then Tal went out. The score was 370 to -70. On the last round, Abraham bid and made Tichu, while Miriam struggled not to go out first. Tal was able to go out after her, and then I went out. Miriam's last cards were a pair of 5s.

July 09, 2008

Participants: Jon, Avraham.

Another game night alost didn't happen. Avraham called and came a bit late, but everyone else seems to have disappeared.

Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation

Avraham++, Jon

I taught this to A, and he beat me twice, as Black and then as White. And he was still wresting with the abilities, too.

Yinsh

Jon+, Avraham

I taught this to A, and was happy to win so as to make up for my defeat in LotR:tC. He enjoyed the game.

Tigris and Euphrates

Jon 14, Avraham 4

And I taught this to A, too, and won by a compfortable margin, as you can see. We played on the entire board, although sometimes I play two-player on a reduced board. I started in the river delta, and built a massive kingdom with Green and Black. We had very few external conflicts; I think only two the entire game, and they were small ones.

We built a few monuments, and kicked them back and forth for a while with internal conflicts, but I ended up with control, and even abandoned one of the colors later as I didn't really need it. Basically: I was gaining fast, and he wasn't doing enough to disrupt me.

May 09, 2007

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Gili, Tal, Annette, Eliezer

Hmm. I must have scared away all the regular game group participants; the only regulars to attend were Nadine and Gili. Where did everyone go?

Annette and Eliezer came back for another visit, although it's a long trip for them.

Hearts

Jon/Tal, Annette/Eliezer

I introduced them to Team Hearts for a quick light opener. I had to refresh Annette on the rules of Hearts, and it appears that she wasn't too thrilled with the game. She asked if we could play President.

Tichu

Jon/Tal, Annette/Eliezer

So I tried them on Tichu for one hand. Annette appeared to like it more, but she will need more than one hand to really get into it. In our game, Eliezer went out first, Tal last, and they ended up with all 100 points.

Puerto Rico

Jon 54, Nadine 53, Annette 44

At this point we did our usual dance of what to play. Annette wanted to play Puerto Rico, while Eliezer didn't. I assumed that more people would be coming, so I decided to play Puerto Rico at the same time that I played something with Eliezer. Little did I know what trouble I was getting into.

After Tal went off, and Gili arrived, we were five for the evening, yet, instead of playing a five player game, we ended up playing two three-player games, where I played in both games throughout the evening. How do I keep ending up in this position?

In Puerto Rico, we played with the straight building set. I was first. Both Nadine and I did a fairly straightforward four goods/Factory strategy. Nadine got a fifth good going while I took Harbor, passing up Guild Hall. In the end, she had three large buildings to my two, while I edged her out in shipping points.

Annette had nice goods production going and two quarries (to my none), but none of them were trade goods. So she remained cash shy.

Yinsh

Jon+, Eliezer

I introduced this to Eliezer and played simultaneous with Puerto Rico. As a result, I had to split concentration between these two games.

Our game was very crowded in the center. I won solely based on the fact that I understood the patterns of the game better than he did on his first play. Typical moves I used included my having a ring with two of his pieces extending one way and two of mine the opposite way. Jumping his pieces gave me five in a row.

Caylus

Jon+, Gili, Eliezer

I let Gili pick the next game as she arrived in the middle of the Yinsh game, and this is what she chose. Oh well. Not my favorite, but I'm willing.

It's hard to describe a Caylus game. Suffice to say that I managed two large buildings including the 25 pointer, as well as a lot of castle points and favors therefrom. Gili also got two buildings, and more building points, but less castle points. In the end, she made a small mistake in building in the castle. Even without it, she probably wouldn't have won, but it would have been closer.

Eliezer didn't quite get the green-blue building dynamic. He spent the last part of the game getting straight victory points and gold cubes. Actually, now that I think about it, he was about 20 points behind Gili, but he had a fist full of cubes and cash that we didn't bother to count at the end. It's likely that he was closer to Gili's score than we realized.

The Menorah Game

Nadine+, Jon+, Annette

We played two games, Nadine winning the first and me the second. In the second game Annette was very close to winning but got hit with a soldier and we managed to fill in our tiles before she could build up again. These were her first plays.

Nadine still doesn't like the soldier mechanic in the game and would prefer to play with out them.

We managed to hit a situation that I had never hit before not covered in the rules. The last two cards were both soldiers. After the first was dealt with, the second is put aside and another tile is supposed to be drawn, after which the soldier set aside is returned to the deck. This makes the first time that a soldier was mixed into the deck on the second time through the deck.

Even after a few hundred plays, things like this happen.

San Juan

Nadine, Annette

Nadine taught Annette how to play this but they only played a few rounds before they had to go. Annette appeared to like it.

January 17, 2007

Participants: Jon, Nadine, David K, Shevi, Josh, Idit, Jeremy, Adam, Gili, Binyamin, Zack, Rachel

Another week of almost-RPG, pushed off once again until next week.

The Menorah Game

Nadine+, Jon

David+, Shevi, Nadine, Jon, Zack, Binyamin

I wanted to try out a variation on the tile distribution that was designed to accommodate between two to six players. Each additional player adds a set of tiles, thus keeping the relative number of tiles available per person about equal.

For two players, the number of tiles was slightly less than usual, but the impact on the game was extremely minimal. For six players I added most of the tiles from another set. With six players, like with so many other games that accommodate up to six players, the game bogged down considerably.

With six players, there was a tremendous amount of auctioning, so it's not like you were bored. And the auctions went quickly. In fact, as far as bogginess, I would rate this game better than other games with six players, such as Power Grid or Wildlife. But other games with six, suchas Geschenkt or Havoc would beat it.

As a result, most of us were bored with the six player variant and we decided that three or four is still best.

In both cases we played the advanced version of the game, which was the first time for the advanced version for some of the players, such as David and Nadine. Remarkably, both Nadine and David didn't like the advanced version compared to the basic version, and David said the advanced version was decidedly more lucky!

This is in contrast to some of the other people their, such as Binyamin and Shevi, who both much prefer the advanced version to the basic version, and consider the basic version too lucky. So it was a fifty-fifty split.

Yinsh

Josh+, Idit

I quickly rattled off the rules to these two who played while we were playing TMG. Josh won, but declared Idit to be a great blocker.

Children of Fire: the Board Game

Adam (Anakim) 12, Binyamin (Sorcerors) 10, Shevi (Children of Dark)
9, Jeremy (Watchers) 6

The same complaint from the last two plays reared its ugly head again, which is that the game is not guaranteed to terminate. When you get to the last undecided character, if the balance is equal, the game can just keep going back and forth.

This was particularly aggravating to Binyamin, whose cards were the least numerically, and therefore the worst at picking up points with the masses as everyone else did at the end of the game.

It is a general consensus that the game can be fixed with a rigorous number of turns limit, such as twenty or so. One person suggested that masses tokens become more difficult to buy as the game goes on.

Amun-Re

Zack 43, Idit 40, Nadine 35, Josh 25

This was a first play for all but Nadine. I assume that everyone liked it, although I have no further information about the play.

Caylus

David+, Jon, Gili

David and I almost started Netrunner, but Gili came along so we joined her into a game of Caylus, which was one person more than I really like to play the game.

Well, to be honest, it's three people more, as each time I play it it goes down another notch. I was particularly bored this game, and not simply because it looked like David had a relatively early lead, but because I really didn't care to calculate the results of my actions so much. These two facts are rather related, I suspect.

I don't know why. I'm happy to calculate breadth games such as Magic, or depth games such as Go, but Caylus, which has so much of both, just leaves me bored.

David managed to thwart my building plans a lot, and then managed to shoot to four green buildings while Gili and I had only one, although I acquired a second. Due to my refusal to do any calculations, I ended up only converting one to a blue building (the 25 pointer). I was still about 25 points behind David, and Gili was also about that behind me.

I was happy to see the game end.

Netrunner

David (runner), Jon (corp)

And both of us were very happy to get back into another game of this. This time we made it about halfway through the game in about one and a half hours. By the end, we were still looking up tons of rules, but having a blast doing so.

Netrunner, like Magic, is a rich game with complex rules. Having followed Magic, one gets the sense that they built on Magic's successes, tried to avoid some of the problems, and added a whole lot more. As a matter of fact, Netrunner and CCGs in general have more in common with the previous generation's war games and RPGs than they do with modern Euro games. They sit in this lovely place in between, where the rules are deep, expansive, and complex, but the resulting game is easy and
compact, and quick to play.

Last time David took the corp and I had the runner, and this time we reversed. I had managed to cash in two agenda worth four agenda points, while David had built up a veritable army of programs and hardware, but had yet to liberate any agendas.

The next time we play will go smoother, and we may even finish the game. Only thereafter will we start to think about deck construction with our limited supply of cards. I suspect I will need to acquire more in order to give us some deck-building options.

Magic: the Gathering

Adam+, Binyamin

Although they had some play experience, neither had deck-building experience, and they had to get some tips from us as to how to pull something playable together. Then I had to field a lot of questions during the game as to how and/or why to use certain cards.

Still, they both seemed to enjoy themselves.

Puerto Rico

Zack 58, Nadine 50, Rachel 41

Zack does seem to have a genius for winning his first games, much like Elijah used to have. This was his first play of Puerto Rico, so he got a lot of assistance during the game.