April 14, 2010

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Gili, Ben, Binyamin, Abraham, Emily, Eitan, Joan, Lori, Bill

Lori returned for her second session. Joan is Eitan's grandmother, and she came to play Bridge, for which she found willing participants. Ben and Binyamin both returned after long absences, returning some games they had borrowed several weeks ago.

Robber Knights

Ben 29, Gili 28, Binyamin 27, Jon 23

First play for Ben and Gili, second play for me and Binyamin. Nadine didn't want to play, so sat off to the side. Midway through the game, Binyamin remembered that he didn't want to play, either, but managed to finish the game.

Most of our game group doesn't like tile-laying area control games, such as this, Carcassonne, Taluva, and similar. Binyamin in particular thinks this game is more dull than most. I disagree. I don't think it's a fantastic game, but I'm happy to play it and I don't think it's boring. At least, when your opponents move at a reasonable clip.

Ben took quite some time to make his moves, which is part of what frustrated Binyamin, and me a little. There's not enough game there to think that long. Still, he won, so there you go.

Dominion + Intrigue + Seaside

Jon 45, Emily 30, Bill (Lori) 27, Eitan 23

Scores approximate. I tried to teach this to Lori, but her eyes kept glazing over. Eventually, Bill sat down to "help" her, but he ended up playing while Lori watched.

We had two reaction cards and no attacks. Nothing that gave 2 actions, but we had Upgrade and Remodel. We had the card that gave +1 action/+1 card/+1 VP, and the one that gave +2 coins and +1 action/+1 card if this was the third or later action on your turn.

Emily and Eitan tried combination of the latter two cards, while I remodeled my way to glory.

Emily+, Eitan, Bill

The next game they played took a few hours, but it was interspersed with a lot of general chit-chat between them and other non-playing people in the room.

Summoner Wars

Gili++, Abraham

First play for both of them, Abraham brought this, the first of several games he recently acquired. They both appeared to be having fun. I think Gili won at least two games.

Bridge

Ben/Binyamin, Jon/Nadine

We played a few hands.

Ben/Binyamin, Joan/Nadine

They played several more hands. Joan is quite an experienced player.

Jon 3380, Joan 2100, Nadine 1600, Ben 1200

We played a 12 game round robin, changing partners after every four hands. Vulnerability was None, Dealer, Dealer, All. Scoring was duplicate.

Ben played Bridge for three and a half hours and drew an opening hand twice, 12 and 11 points once each, and the rest of his hands were 10 or less points. It's hard to win non-duplicate with that kind of luck.

In our first pair-up, Nadine and I scored two games, then went down 2. In the last hand, Ben and Joan scored a partial with overtricks. In the next set, Joan and I scored two games, set our opponents once, and then went down 1.

In the last set, Ben had no hope of winning since I was ahead of him and he was my partner. Our opponents made a game, but we set them three times, once for 500 points.

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.

March 31, 2010: Games Day

Participants: Gili, Nadine, Abraham, Elijah, Cliff, Emily, Eitan, Bill, Jon

Despite my efforts, there was a Games Day this year. Gili hosted as I wasn't able to, and fun was had. I only showed up at 5:00 or so.

Age of Empires III

Jon 115, Nadine 110, Gili 109

First game for each of them, second game (first three-player game) for me. We had no conflicts during the game. That may have been because of the personalities of the players, or that investing in conflict takes a lot of precious resources for little reward. Though it causes the other players to have to invest a little in defense.

Otherwise, the game was tighter than the two-player game, but just as good. I was pretty sure that Nadine was kicking our butts, as she got her economic engine off to a fantastic start. Toward mid and end-game however, I/we were no longer sure, as I had several discovered territories and Gili had a nice bonus buildings. We were right, as it came down to the wire.

Nadine might have won if she had invested in more buildings earlier. Gili would have won if she had succeeded in her last discovery attempt (a loss of 7 or 8 vps). So, yeah, that little part of the game is somewhat annoying, but it is actually a minor part of the game. And you don't even have to spend your time on discoveries, if you don't want to.

Nice game. Looking forward to playing it with four and five players.

Nadine adds: Age of Empires III is a good basic Euro.

Blood Red Sands (RPG)

Bill (GM), Elijah, Abraham, Emily, Eitan

Bill says: By the end of the session, we each had 0 victory points.

We were mostly able to learn the rules, but there are still some points that need clarification. The ordeal creation portion of the game took several hours, probably because we were still learning the rules. This was bad for the hero player, because he had to be out of the room for that period. He thought he finished his character very early but actually had not, because he had not made the background. I didn't explain this to him initially because I wasn't there when he thought he finished and also because I was so involved in the ordeal creation and answering rules questions. Also, being a lot like Universalis, I'm not sure this is appropriate as a pickup game, since (in my experience) this type of game seems very dependent on the personality mix of the group.

There was one contention for the position of Chronicler, which was successful. Since I was very inexperienced and the other players were very very inexperienced, play was a bit rocky after that, but picked up after a while. The total length of actual play was fairly short though, because most of the play time was consumed in ordeal creation.

During the only clash that happened that night, I was constantly referring back to the rules for clarification because I didn't have a full enough understanding, which took away from the overall play experience and I think gave the rules the appearance of greater complexity than there really was.

The end result was that after the game, at least one player had the impression that the Blood Red Sands was more complex than D&D 4e. I don't believe it is, but I blame my shallow understanding of the rules for that impression. To play it successfully as a pickup game, I think at least one player has to have a deep understanding of the rules and none of us did last night.

David & Goliath

Abraham+, Elijah, Nadine

Played as a filler.

El Grande

Abraham 111, Nadine 103, Elijah 100, Gili, Cliff

Nadine says: It was a great game, very close, with each player in the lead at different times. At the start of the third scoring round we were all within a few points. In the last turn, Gili put the king in Abe's region to keep it away from where her guys were. He scored with it 3 times - once when he took score one region, when I took score all the four regions, and at the end of the game. Cliff hadn't played before but is a war gamer and caught on quickly, though he missed how the castillo works the first scoring round.

Hunting Party

Jon 25, Nadine 9, Gili

First play for me, second for Nadine and Gili. I scored a pretty combination of cards at the start of the game: a) pay 3 to take back a share, and b) eliminate the cost of some other ability. So each round I got back a share, for free. I won when Nadine ended the game and I had lots of cash.

It's an ok game that seems somewhat unbalanced and not quite the sum of its parts. There's not much game there. On the one hand, it's better than Clue, with which it shares a genre. On the other, the mechanics just aren't that interesting.

Nadine adds: Hunters doesn't feel strategic, and is too long. I shouldn't have fought at the end but forgot that I only get a share of the money. If I hadn't, the game would have gone on for at least half an hour, and I don't think I could have won. I should have gotten more than I did for guessing right and having all the right things, though of course that's at the expense of keeping shares. Jon had good cards and played well with lots of money the whole time.

Shadows Over Camelot

Abraham, Gili, Elijah, Nadine, Emily, Eitan, Bill

The loyalists won. Bill was the traitor, but he only arrived for the last two rounds of the game, and so didn't have much chance. Nadine adds: Shadows is always a lot of fun somehow.

March 17, 2010

Participants: Binyamin, Nadine, Gili, Abraham, Emily, Eitan, Jon, Tal, Toby

I never received a session report for last week, although a session took place. All I know about it is that they played Sienna and the night didn't end until 1:30 am.

This week, the first week I'm back from the US, I had to be out until around 8:45, but I left the apt available. When I returned, gaming was going on.

Hunting Party

Abraham, Nadine, Binyamin, Gili

I don't know what happened, but I think it was the first game for everyone except for Abraham, who brought the game. It might have been his second play. It sounded like a fantasy version of Clue. They appeared to enjoy the game.

Saikoro

Eitan, Emily

They came later, and played one and a half games of this until I arrived. I don't know who won.

Steam

Jon 74, Emily 49, Eitan 46

We had all played this once as a five player game, although I had played Age of Steam a few additional times, as well. They both liked it, and, since Nadine didn't really like, I figured it wouldn't tempt her to break up the game she was playing.

We played on the German side of the board, and without the "first game" benefits. I don't know if it was because we were only three players, or just because Steam is an easier game than AoS, but none of us ran into any money issues during the game. The first round, two people paid a buck or two at the end of the round, and that was that. The rest was jockeying for routes and cubes.

Ten rounds seemed to be too long for this. There are somewhat less options available later in the game, and in any case it was fairly determined that I was going to win by round 5 or 6, barring some catastrophic bad plays.

It's still a nice game, especially for me because I love route planning and pickup and delivery mechanics. There's no "luck", but games play out very differently. One of the negative parts of the game still remains prominent: namely, that you can choose to give points to one of the other players, which can have a dramatic king-making effect.

In our game, we all played near the middle, but I was in the actual middle while my opponents played slightly to the south. Emily eventually took some northeast routes as well, while Eitan managed to get a route or two up to the northwest. I occupied the middle and north, from west to east.

March 03, 2010

Participants: Nadine, Gili, Emily

This is the second of three game nights that I'm away in the US. Nadine hosted; take it away, Nadine:

An efficient, calm and fun session - two meaty games in less that two and a
half hours.

Year of the Dragon

Emily+, Nadine, Gili

Turn order was Emily, Nadine, Gili most of the game. Final results were
Emily, Nadine, Gili. Emily did a good job, she won by 7 points and was the
only one to have one firecracker during the whole game.

Princes of Florence

Nadine 125, Emily 109, Gili 101

Gili said she didn't understand how I did it, I said I didn't either. I had
the most works played, 6 vs. 5, I didn't get any Bonus cards and had all 3
freedoms, 2 jesters, Emily had 3 and one freedom. We all got best work at
least twice. I had two Prestige cards vs. 1, and Gili's gave her no points,
so that's partly luck, and I started with two cards with the same building
and bought the third. We didn't bid much against each other, everything
except jesters mostly went for 200.

Ed Note: Apparently they messed up the scoring, using $1 = 1 point, instead of $1 = 1/2 point.

February 24, 2010

Participants: Nadine, Gili, Abraham

First of three game nights at Nadine's while I'm in the US. Session report by Nadine:

Gili and Abe arrived at about the same time.

David & Goliath

Abraham+, Gili, Nadine

Gili+, Abraham, Nadine

Abe had never played David and Goliath so we played two games. Abe won the first one by a lot, Gili won the second one.

Cuba + expansions

Abraham 73, Nadine 70, Gili 70

Then we played Cuba with the expansion buildings. Abe bought one of them on the first round, that lets you trade 5 different non-cube things for 9 points. I had the sugar-rum-points buildings.

Abe had a lot of money and cubes, he won the political influence every round except the last two. The second to last round Gili won and selected the card that lets you only produce one resource, so Abe couldn't get the resources to use the building, so he didn't use it all game. The market had been cleared out by political cards. He was able to ship, and still won.

Final score Abe 73, me and Gili tied at 70, I had two coins. We had talked about her keeping a coin for a tie breaker during the bidding, but she wanted to select cards. We could have each done a few things differently.

The game seems very well balanced because it's usually close at the end, after my two games. It's fun, not too long, with interesting choices that seem to matter though almost all my choices were worth 2 points. Abe beat me in number of useless cubes.

February 17, 2010

Participants: Jon, Gili, Claude, Binyamin, Nadine, David K, Mace

I had some last minute work to finish. Claude is a local designer of simple but interesting wooden games who has come before, and also, coincidentally, a friend of Gili's. He introduced a number of his own new games.

Claude Game

Mace, Claude, David+, Nadine

I forgot the game name. The game was like Mastermind crossed with Liar's Poker, and I didn't get to play it. The game was enjoyed by all the players, however. From only looking at the game, I'm not sure that each player, if sufficiently highly intelligent, should not be able to win siultaneously.

Each player secretly gets a role, and based on the role must either "always tells truth", "always tells lie", "alternates truth and lie", or "say whatever he likes". Each player is also given a card in one of four colors and with one of four numbers that all other players can see.

On a player's turn, he flips over an unused card from the 16 casrd deck, and then asks one of a set number of questions about his own card in relation to the flipped card: is it the same color? same number? and a few others. The other players, from LHO around, answer the question by placing their yes/no disks along a track, like a Mastermind track. The question asked is left visually beside the answers (using a simple code system). When you think you know what your card is, you reveal, and either win or lose (actually, I don't know what happens if you lose; do the others keep playing?)

Like Mastermind, it's more of a puzzle than a game, except that the "say whatever he likes" guy has more to do ... and also, we believe, has somewhat more of an advantage (will probably figure out his card one round before everyone else). And, though the board has a dozen track spaces, chances are that no more than 6 will ever be required.

It's the quietest game I've seen since Princes of Florence. Lots of working things and figuring.

Claude's games now have a website, which I will fill in here later.

Magic

David++, Jon+

We drafted Rochester draft again, though (as per comments on the previous Magic session) I may mix up the draft next time. we both ended up with White/Green/Red, since that's what came out. David only lost the second game because he reckelessly went full out on the last round, instead of attacking with half his critters, and then finishing me off the next round. The third game was close, at least.

Power Grid: Factory Manager

Nadine, Binyamin, Mace, Claude (part)

This was way too complicated for Claude, and he had to leave early, anyway. Nadine had to read the instructions to teach the game as she didn't remember them from the one two-player game we had played. This is always a painful way to learn a game, especially one as complicated as this one. I don't know the results.

Dvonn

David+, Jon

David had never played this, and he enjoyed it, as I suspected he would. He was a little unsure of the depth, since he beat me, but I convinced him that it's easy to mess up, even with experience.