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 18, 2008

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Jonathan, Gili, Yitzchak, Shirley, David K

Gili and Binyamin were absent last week attempting to teach some non-gamers how to play Settlers, apparently without much success.

Princes of Florence

Jonathan 63, Nadine 62, Yitzchak 61, Gili 58

I set this up, but then moved to another game and Nadine took my place. The scores are really close, as you can see, and this was Jonathan's first game.

Caylus

David 116, Jon 68, Shirley 68

Shirley's first game. I generally don't like playing this, as it takes too long and is too fiddly. And, when you know you're losing, you get to know that for a few hours. That's what happened here. I had a nice second round, but the Provost kept knocking out everything I wanted to do, and David was just miles ahead structurally by mid-game.

At one point, I had the decision to move the provost back up 1 to 3 spaces, but I was only considering the space nearest to the Provost, and what would happen if David moved it back to that spot. I decided that the space didn't matter enough, but I would let David decide. I missed the fact that he could move it three spaces, knocking out two of mine. It was a 10 point loss for me (no building in the castle, no favor) and a large loss in momentum, too. And it hurt Shirley prettily, too.

It was just a matter of how much he would win by. A lot, as you can see.

Notre Dame

Yitzchak 71, Nadine 58, Jonathan 56

Another first game for Jonathan, but he didn't fare quite as well (though decent enough).

Magic: The Gathering

Jon+, David+

We simply cut 60 cards for each player from the stack of remaining unplayed cards, eliminating a few of the duplicates. Without drafting, one doesn't feel like one has as much to do with one's own success. In this case, David had the better deck. Building and playing still have a lot to do, but not enough.

I won the first game only because David was stuck at two lands for nearly all of it. And it was still close.
[DK: Well close is an exaggeration. I was holding my own, which was very surprising for only two mana over many many rounds. Jon neglected to mention that my two mana was after a mulligan down to 6 cards since my first draw was mana short. And this was with a 40 card deck with 17 mana.]

The second game wasn't a walkover for David; I managed to bury three of his creatures. But he had more ways of delivering the pain than I did.

June 11, 2008

Participants: Jon, Max, Sergei, Nadine, Avraham

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

Havoc

Jon 38, Nadine 29, Sergei 21, Max 18

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

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

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

Power Grid

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

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

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

It's Alive

Avraham+, Nadine, Jon

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

Avraham 49. Jon 46, Nadine 41

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

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

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

June 05, 2008

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

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

Mykerinos

Binyamin+, Jon

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

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

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

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

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

Mississippi Queen

Binyamin+, Ari+, Jon -2

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

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

Race for the Galaxy

Binyamin 36, Jon 35, Ari 31

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

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

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

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

Power Grid

Binyamin 17, Ari 15, Jon 14

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

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

Puerto Rico

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

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

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

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

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

It's Alive

Shirley 57, Nadine 53, Bill 45

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

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

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.

May 14, 2008

Participants: Jon, Jonathan, Nadine, Yitzchak, Dylan, Ari, Bill

We're back to a weekly Wed schedule after the various hagim. Also, Bill returns from the U.S. for a few weeks, to try once again to introduce us to the joys of roleplaying outside of D&D. Ari has been with us before, but not for a long time.

It's Alive

Jonathan 60, Jon 52, Nadine 49

I introduced Jonathan to the game, and we played the advanced version. Nadine got all the Villagers, while Jonathan seemed to get all the coffins. Nadine still completed her board first. But in the end, Nadine only scored 49, even with the 5 point bonus, while Jonathan scored a hefty 60: 44 on his board, and 16 coins.

Robo Rally

Jon+, Jonathan, Nadine, Yitzchak, Dylan, Ari

We weren't sure how long we wanted to play this, since we were waiting for Bill to come and start a roleplaying session. So we chose a single board and a single flag. And each robot had an option, two of which were very painful (if they shoot you, they switch your program for theirs/they push you instead of damaging you). What could go wrong?

Turns out nothing, for me. I saw that the game could be won in three turns with perfect cards and play and no interference. Somehow or another, I actually did it. The whole game went three turns, which was an hour.

On the very first turn, my cards were Move 2, Move 2, Move 1, Turn, Turn. I almost left them like this, when suddenly I realized that it would be safer to start with a Move 1 rather than a Move 2, so I switched cards 1 and 3. That was the key to winning. Everyone else went in front of me and I just shot them or pushed them. If I had done it as I had originally planned, someone would have fallen behind me and eventually shot or bumped me.

R-Eco

Dylan 17, Nadine 16, Jon 5

I'm amazed I got a score above negative, actually. It didn't seem like it for a while.

I came up with a variant for the game right before playing. I mixed up all the chips upside down, stacked them into four stacks of seven, and then flipped them right side up onto the four cards. We knew what the top chip of a pile was, but not what the next one was going to be. Colors and numbers were completely randomly ordered.

Turns out to be a blast. The scores are higher, since more people can acquire 5's, which makes the game more interesting, and not simply who takes the last chip, which is often what happens. Give it a try.

Caylus

Ari 103, Yitzchak 92, Jonathan 71

Jonathan's first game. I didn't see what happened.

Universalis / Children of Fire

Bill (GM), Jon, Dylan, Nadine

CoF is a light roleplaying system based on angels which you can download for free. Dylan and I had pre-made characters. Nadine claims that she had made one once when Adam had been planning to run a session, but either she never gave it to me or I couldn't find it. So she had to come up with a character as we played.

Universalis is a points base storytelling experience where it costs you points to introduce items or events that change the story, or to interrupt. The point was to create the setting for the CoF game. The whole things took about twenty minutes, during which I was trying to wrap my head around my first non-D&D RPG experience. In the end, the story setting was pretty much what Bill assumed it would be.

In, CoF, the three of us angels were sent down to Wichita to examine why a lot of prayers have been coming up to heaven, as well as complaints about strange abuse cases, crop circles, and loss of memory. I think we're supposed to think it's aliens, but obviously it's some sort of demon activity.

My character looks a bit like Dream from Sandman, but with a wolf motif and always has a wolf with him and a rod that can glow. I am distracted by the suffering of animals over humans, which I hammed up a lot. Dylan's character is a short portly guy with a glass eye. And Nadine's character looks like a 17 year old girl with blue hair and weird colors (think Delirium from Sandman). We made an impressive looking group. Wherever townsfolk ask what we're doing in town, I just say that we're here for the sci-fi convention.

So far, we're hitched a ride to a motel, heard some complaints from the townsfolk. Then we scouted out at night and I rescued a 16 year old boy from a crazed dog (or vice versa, depending on who you ask). That's it for two an a half hours. We got interrupted a lot and had fun.