July 16, 2008

Participants: Jon, David K, Gili, Saarya

Two guests! As much as the combined number from the last two weeks. Why, at this Fibonacci rate, the whole planet will be at my group by the end of the year!

Cribbage

Jon, Gili

Gili and I played half a game while we were waiting. I was ahead a bit.

Notre Dame

David 57, Jon 55, Gili, Saarya

Saarya's first play. I played a very balanced game, ignoring the VP track but putting two into Park. In the very last round, I ran out of money and couldn't buy the last favor, costing me the game. David skipped Notre Dame in the last triad, but took the last favor of 3 VP for each 3 populated province for 10 points (with Park). He also had his VP track going, so I avoided passing him VP track cards, but didn't use them myself.

Saarya concurs with the rest the rest of us that a tad more control would be slightly better.

Cities and Knights of Catan

David 11, Gili 5, Jon 5

My rule is that I'll play this game with an alternate win condition: that you win if you have five more points than second place. Keeps the game from going on too long, and makes jockeying for Longest Road somewhat more interesting at the middle of the game.

I had 4 points more than either of them near the beginning, owing to defending the island once and having Longest Road. David stole my knight, so that he then collected three defender points while I stalled for resources. I beat Gili out to a wheat port, but, though situated on an 8/5 wheat, never got to use it. David won the game when he took Longest Road from me.

David feels that a better alternate rule is that you win if you are four points ahead of second place, not counting Longest Road (he doesn't like the LR jockeying, and anyway the point is to prevent a won game from dragging on).

Magic: the Gathering

David++, Jon

We drafted for decks, but I drafted far too many rather than too few creatures, for once. May lack of utility made me unable to pass his defenses, while he had a few spells that could pass mine. My lack of red mana in the first game, and then slow start to green mana in the second, didn't help.

February 14, 2007

Participants: Jon, Eyal, Elijah, Zack, Nadine, Adam, David K, Shevi, Gili, Binyamin, Rachel A

Rachel and I were a little late with dinner again, so Eyal sat around a bit while we ate. After that we taught him how to play Puerto Rico without actually playing. We also almost played Geschenkt.

Intrigue

Adam 148, Shevi 147, Elijah 115, Eyal 97

A game of outright lying and deal-breaking. Shevi had an opportunity to win at the end of the game but didn't take it because she considered the basic mechanics of the game to be cheating.

Wild Life

Zack 98, Jon 93, David 89, Nadine 85

Every time people come to the game group they clamor for the games that they want to play. Zack always wants to play Wild Life, Elijah always wants to play Cosmic Encounter, Adam always wants to play Modern Art, and so on.

When people don't agree on games, they then start hashing out what they are willing to play, but constantly change their commitments as they hear of new possibilities. It only proves that we should never play any outright negotiation games.

In this instance, we managed to cure Zack of his Wild Life obsession. Even with only four people, the game took three and a half hours. And it wasn't on my turns that the time went on (I took an extra minute for my last move, but that was all).

Frankly, after all the thinking by some people, and lack of thinking by me, the game progressed rather evenly. Nadine believes that the card draw is too luck dependent. I suggested that next time we divide the cards evenly among all players, letting them pick ala Torres.

Zack was finally tired of the game and just wanted it to end. But he said it was better with more players (5 or 6) since there was more competition that way.

Nadine adds:

On luck in Wildlife - the same as with many games of this type - with skilled players who know the game and optimize, luck, such as with cards, is more of a differentiator than play ability. And there don't seem to be different strategies, it's tactical, where most people would do the same thing in the same situation, unlike Puerto Rico where there's more worthwhile variability.

Zertz

Jon+, Binyamin

While I played Wild Life, I taught Binyamin how to play, and, like others in the game group, abstracts are not his thing. I gained a white ball advantage, and forced a few more exchanges, gaining whites each time for the win.

Cribbage

Gili+, Binyamin

Then Gili taught Binyamin this game. I don't think they finished it, but Gili was in the lead.

Settlers of Catan

Shevi+, Eyal, Gili

I didn't see this one.

Tigris and Euphrates

Binyamin 9, Adam 6, Elijah 4

I didn't see this one, either. Binyamin apparently had 9 in all colors.

Cosmic Encounter

Binyamin (Siren, Ethic)+, Elijah (Dragon, Pacifist)+, Zack (Entrepreneur, Grief), Adam (Extortionist, Delegator)

Another I didn't see. Apparently, Binyamin and Elijah compromised their way with each other several times to a double win.

Nerunner

David (Runner)+, Jon (Corp)

This time the game went more smoothly. We both removed cards from our basic decks to bring us down to minimum sized decks. We only had to look up one rule about Nodes.

David ran my R&D once, and then pulled agendas from my HQ three times to win. I managed to get two agendas fulfilled, so it was a close game.

David became a little disenchanted with the game after realizing that winning is partly due to luck, since running is so often blind - on hidden cards, and pulling cards at random out of HQ.

While of course there is a little luck in this, I still think that it is on par with, or even less of a problem than, the luck in Magic. So I am still quite enamored with the game. David is now asking to move onto the next CCG, Middle Earth.

[David: Two comments. First, Jon doesn't emphasize just how lucky I got in order to win. Though on one of my runs on HQ Jon had two agendas, typically HQ should average about one agenda out of 5 (rough estimate). So the chance of my getting three agendas from 4 runs is about one in 30. More to the point, the expected number of agendas one should pull on a run is 0.2, but the standard deviation is 0.4, twice as large as the expectation. That is why I say that there is so much luck involved. Magic also has luck in which cards get drawn, but NetRunner has the same luck in that regard, plus the enormous amount of luck involved in random runs.]

Puerto Rico

Eyal 53, Rachel 48+, Nadine 48-

This was Eyal's first game, so Nadine gave her usual tips and helps along the way. Eyal's novice moves threw Rachel off of her game. Between the two of these events, Eyal managed a newbie win.

Nadine adds:

I didn't give my usual tips and help along the way to Eyal. I had time to explain the game beforehand, and he understands games. I told him to ask if he had questions. Both Rachel and I restrained ourselves, even when he let me trade sugar early instead of forcing me to ship. But when I was going to have the opportunity to trade coffee, we explained to him what was going on, but at that point he didn't stop me because it would have caused him to lose goods. Most of the time he figured out the best role for himself. He did Craft somewhat frequently, but with 3 player it benefits both players more than in 4 or 5 player.