July 13, 2011

Participants: Jon, Christian, David K, Nadine, Gili, Shmuel

Christian is a visitor from Germany who will be in Israel for a month. Shmuel is Gili's nephew, who will also be in Israel for a month.

San Juan

David 41, Jon 38, Christian 32, Nadine 27

Christian had played this once a while ago; it has been supplanted in his group by Race for the Galaxy. I changed the Guild Hall to only give 2 points for each type of production building.

No one built a Prefecture, but David built a fairly early Library. And he still built a complete Guild Hall. I had Aqueduct and Wishing Well going. Nadine was behind in buildings.

Odin's Ravens

Shmuel, Gili

Gili relearned this game and taught it to Shmuel. Shmuel won the first race after Gili extended the board several times. They ended the game after the one race.

Homesteaders

Jon 56, Christian 49, David 34

First play for Christian. One my, and David's, favorites. I racked up some early debt, eventually hitting 5 debt chips, which had me worried. Also, I'm usually able to buy Church by round 6 or 7; when I couldn't, largely because I wasn't producing any trade goods (gold, cow, or copper), I was concerned. David had both Gold Mines; however, he didn't have a single trade chip producing building. He was taking trade chips, instead of more valuable goods, when he moved forward on the railroad track.

In the end I was able to cancel all but three of my debt chips, though just barely.

Tribune

Nadine+, Gili, Shmuel

First play for Shmuel. I didn't see how it went.

Tichu

Jon/David 600, Nadine/Christian 200

First play for Christian. We played five hands. I bid and made one Tichu and one Grand Tichu, both by the skin of my teeth. I bid the Grand Tichu with AKQJT92 and the Phoenix.

June 01, 2011

Participants: Jon, Gili, Nadine, David K

Quiet night.

Saikoro

Jon+, Gili

Gili is not into abstracts, but she agreed to try this quick game. I vaguely recall that when I first got the game, I could shake the dice while they were in the box; I see that this is not possible, so my memory must be faulty. This inability detracts from the ease of setting up the game.

Otherwise, it's a very nice, quick, and pretty abstract game.

San Juan

Gili 36, Jon 33, Nadine 24

We had some trouble coming up with a filler game to play until Gili finally suggested this. I played several buildings to help my production and trading, and a Smithy. I had all 12 buildings built, two of them large buildings, and a Chapel going, too. But, in the end, Gili got a mid-game Guild Hall and that was that.

Time to a) change Guild Hall or b) disallow multiples of production buildings. It's simply too unbalancing. This happens in nearly every game.

Homesteaders

Gili 58, Jon 56, Nadine 51, David 50

Gili suggested this and I never turn this game down, as it's my favorite game (or thereabouts, anyway). It's enjoyable the first few times, and gets better as you learn all the possibilities. I can see that I'll want some variant buildings maybe a few dozen more plays down the line; but we have a long way to go before that happens.

I thought I started out ok. I managed a good balance of trade chips. But I realized on turn five that I was severely lacking in trade goods: no gold, cows, or copper. Thus, I wasn't able to take Church on round 5 or 6 like I generally aim for. Instead, Gili was the one with the early gold mine, and David swiped the other one. Gili saw me going for Church on round 7 and easily stole it from me.

I finally acquired good resources (a cow machine) and money as we neared the end, but not with enough sway to get the two Railroad Stations; David took those, though he paid a lot of resources to do so (bidding 16 in round 10, plus the coast of the three buildings). He didn't have enough in the way of other VPs and he lost a lot paying off his final debts.

Just like San Juan, Gili had fewer buildings than I did but beat me by a few points. Nadine passed a few too many times, taking the 3 points on the railroad track at least twice.

Shipyard

Jon 83, Nadine 78, David 53

First play for David. I thought I could teach this quickly and we could play it fairly quickly (only 25 actions for each player, after all). I taught it quickly. And it didn't appear to bog down at any point. But it took longer than I anticipated, around 2 hours. David had to leave before the last two turns were taken, so we played his turns for him.

We also played the missions correctly for the first time. In previous games we simply kept all of our missions, having missed the little note where it says to discard one of each color after the first and second passes.

I chose the 6 points per ship with smokestack, sail, and propeller over the 4 points per used water tile. The latter can be nice, but there's no way to get multiple water tiles in a single action. My other mission was 3/10/17 points for 6 piece ships. I ended with 35 points from my missions, far more than David's 22 and Nadine's 18 or so.

My three boats scores 15, 15, and 18. Nadine's one big boat scored 30 (10 speed, and landing on a 10 space flag, plus assorted other scoring features, and another scored pretty well, too. David concentrated on his missions, which included double smokestacks and number of ships, but missed out on some other scoring possibilities on the way. One of his boats only scored two points.

David adds: I had actually given up on winning quite a bit earlier. My strategy had been based on my bonus cards. I think if I had known how to play better it might even have been viable, but for a newbie it was WAY too ambitious as it required me to sail 6 ships. When I realized (fairly early) that I wouldn't be able to accomplish that I took your advice on setting a lower goal for the game.

Nadine adds: I had 15 bonus from having everything [every type of item] and 8 or 10 from blue and yellow cards, more than 18 [this works out to 23 or 25]. It's hard to work on two bonuses at once, and we used to play with six.

September 26, 2010: Games Day

Participants: Jon, Mace, Shachar, Nadine, Elijah, Saarya, Michael, Oren, Yardena, Tal, Rachel

Small Games Day, I think because Janglo, the local mailing list that usually publicizes the event, is no longer all that effective. Still, it was fun for all involved, I believe.

Age of Empires III

Elijah 120, Oren 110, Nadine 82, Shachar 69

Played at the end of the day. First plays for Oren and Shachar. They complained about the building that gives you money from each other player equal to the number of merchant ships that you possess. It is the only building that affects other players, and it dulls the strategy of its possessor.

Agricola

Nadine 44, Shachar 42, Elijah 39, Mace 35, Saarya 31

First plays for Mace, Shachar, and Saarya. According to Nadine, Saarya may have counted player numbers on cards as victory points. The game took five hours.

Antike

Jon 8, Elijah 5, Michael 5, Shachar 3

This is one of the few games I love that I also seem to consistently win. I don't expect this to last, however. I focus on the victory points, not on conquering cities and other players, and I expect to have a lot more challenge (I think this has happened in some of the games I've played) when the other players catch on to this.

I played Greece, rather then my favorite, the Phoenicians. My first play was for gold and Market, followed by a temple, some fleets to ward off players on all sides, and then Democracy. Then five cities, seven seas, and a few more know hows.

Shachar was the Phoenicians, and he simply expanded, while keeping away from my glistening three state fortress and one space in all directions. Michael was the Germans, and he spread out throughout the north rather quickly and then harassed Elijah, who played the Romans. Elijah built some monuments, and then spent his time trying to protect them from Micahel who was always threatening to conquer them.

My final act was to take the last unclaimed known how (Roads). Michael was one move away from preventing me from getting it. Shachar could have prevented it, but he was so far behind that he decided to just conquer my cities and let me win. If he had taken the know how, it would have delayed me one round, after which I could have gotten the bonus point from level two in all the know hows, anyway. (I was also threatening to conquer one of Shachar's temples.)

Dominion/Intrigue/Seaside

Jon 44, Mace 37, Shachar 17

Kingdoms: Cellar, Village, Bureaucrat, Throne Room, Council Room, Harem, Haven, Ambassador, Lookout, Outpost

More Seaside than usual, but still half from the base set. Why does that always happen when I draw randomly?

I took only a modest amount of Villagers, as well as Council Room, Throne Room, and Ambassador. Elijah managed some nice synergy with Haven and Outpost. I originally thought Lookout was weak because I thought it could be used on the cards in your hands. When I realized that you had to pick three random cards to which to apply the effect, I realized that the card sucked. I'm not thrilled with the balance on several of the cards in both Intrigue or Seaside.

Homesteaders

Jon 55, Oren 47, Micahel 41

First plays for both of them. I misplayed twice, taking building auctions for one type of building when I was really planning to build some other type. Second-to-last round, I was locked out of the bidding, and I was not far enough on the railroad track to gain much from it. I was determined hell or high water to get something on the last round, however, which I did, and it was worth over 20 points for me (minus a point or two given up by my having to pay $9 for the privilege).

Michael snared the buildings I wanted (such as Bank) due to my bidding miscalculations, and I wasn't sure that I was winning until that last round.

Oren liked the game.

Magic: the Gathering x 2

Jon++, Mace

Mace hadn't played in a really long time (fourth edition, I think). He was rusty on a few rules. We Rochester drafted from the new cards I bought on eBay.

Our first game, we were both mana glutted, but he didn't have enough creatures in his deck to thwart me. I won fairly early.

In our second game, we entered a standoff for most of the game. However, I had already beat him down to 6 points, while I was sill at 18. Enter the Rod of Ruin on my side, versus a tapping damage prevented on his side, which meant that I could get 1 point through every two turns. In the meantime, he was hitting me for two points each turn with an artifact that required 5 mana to cycle through each point of damage that it dealt to me.

At one point I attacked with everything and cast an instant that gave all of my creatures +2/+2 and first strike, only to have him Fog. Then he attacked with the one creature he could afford to (with Vigilance; he was three points shy of killing me with a full-out assault, and would not have been able to afford the return attack), only to have me Pit Trap and kill it. Back to stalemate and pings.

Eventually, he had three creatures tapped to deal his pinging damage, I had seven creatures able to attack against his four blockers, and he was at two life. He could blast one with an instant, but couldn't prevent the remaining damage. There were six cards left in my deck.

Mr. Jack

Jon+, Michael+

I taught this to Michael. We each won once as Criminal, him on turn three (I goofed), and me on turn 7.

Parade

Elijah 20, Shachar 25, Jon 83

I taught this to them, though I think they had each played once before. My inglorious defeat was due to a tremendously bad hand and a timidity at taking cards. If I had taken more, I would have dome better.

Puerto Rico

Nadine 50, Mace 49, Yardena 48, Rachel 40, Oren 38

First play for Mace. Yardena is self-taught and has played with her kids; this was her first play with another group, and we corrected a few minor errors. I think everyone believed that Nadine was running away with the game, but it was pretty close in the end.

Nadine adds: Rachel realized that Yardena might be winning due to huge shipping, she had a wharf and factory, and harbor at the very end, no big building. I had factory and two big buildings, but low shipping.

Scrabble

Yardena played this with Tal for a while. They didnt' play for points, just for fun. Tal had to leave, and Rachel took over. Even so, they abandoned the game mid-way.

July 21, 2010

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Elijah, Gili, Abraham, Sara, Miriam, Binyamin, Zvi Yehuda

Binyamin returns after a long absence, with his son Zvi Yehuda. Abraham, Sara, and Miriam will be leaving soon.

Dominion/Intrigue/Seaside

Jon 39*, Elijah 32, Nadine 31

Kingdoms: Woodcutter, Remodel, Thief, Council Room, Mine, Adventurer, Coppersmith, Upgrade, Lighthouse, and something else.

I didn't read the Lighthouse carefully enough. As a result, a few times I played it as if I also gained an extra action at the beginning of my next turn. So my score is in doubt.

I played a heavy trashing games, often upgrading 5 cost cards to 6 cost cards, and then remodeling them into provinces. Nadine played fairly straightforward, but both she and Elijah took thieves, which, due to lighthouses, were fairly ineffective.

Gili arrived shortly after we started playing, but I made her wait. I should have restarted, I suppose.

El Grande

Nadine 109, Gili 108, Sara 108, Elijah 90, Abraham 88

Nadine usually sweeps this game with no trouble, so the surprise is how close it was. After the first scoring she was ahead 55 to 47, and after the second 92 to 84.

Homesteaders

Binyamin 75, Jon 73, Miriam 53, Zvi Yehuda 37

First plays for Miriam and Zvi Yehuda, and second or third for Binyamin. I think this may have been my first four player game.

Still a fantastic game. Of course, you need to know about the final buildings in order to plan for them throughout the game. Balancing the need for trade chips without getting drowned by them is possibly the biggest challenge. Far better to be drowned by them than not have enough, however.

I thought I was winning, so it surprised me that Binyamin won in the end. On the other hand, he got both of the two best mid-game buildings, so maybe it shouldn't have surprised me so much. Bidding went high in the last two rounds; I passed on round 9, and Binyamin passed on round 10.

Miriam misbid on round 10 and we didn't let her take it back after Binyamin had already made a different bid as a result. Then we let Zvi Yehuda take something back from the previous turn, which wasn't exactly fair. However, Zvi Yehuda is a young boy, and he was losing by a mile, anyway. In the end, Binyamin moved to outbid Zvi Yehuda, and Zvi Yehuda moved to outbid Miriam, so Miriam got to redo her bid, anyway.

June 09, 2010

Participants: Jon, Miriam, Ksenia, Gili, Nadine, Abraham, Emily, Eitan, Rachel

Emily and Eitan make it back after a few weeks absence. Miriam was here for her third week; she's a natural gamer.

Dominion / Dominion Intrigue / Dominion Seaside

Ksenia 25, Jon 24, Gili 21, Miriam 21

Kingdoms: Chapel, Moat, Moneylender, Gardens, Adventurer, Steward, Coppersmith, Ironworks, Bazaar, Tactician

Lots of trashing doesn't mix well with Gardens, but Ironworks does. And one would take Moneylender or Coppersmith, not both. First time playing with Steward, and I noticed that you have to trash exactly two cards, not "up to two". First time playing with Tactician, which is as powerful as it looks, but it was still hard to choose between it and Bazaar.

First play for Miriam. It was a mistake to play with Steward and Ironworks, both of which require a choice between three actions, which makes it difficult to understand, let alone make the decision, on your first play. Tip: when introducing new players, don't play with complicated cards.

I thought it was a close, quick game, and it was.

Homesteaders

Abraham 53, Nadine 52, Gili 43

Abraham loves this game, like I do. Nadine wasn't sure after her first play, so she played again to see if she liked it better the second time. She said that she likes it enough to play it again, but it's not in her top tier with Puerto Rico or El Grande.

At the end scoring, they thought that they were tied, until they remembered that Nadine had to subtract 1 point for her debt.

Power Grid

Jon 15+, Miriam 15, Ksenia 15

First plays for both Miriam and Ksenia. I explained the market mechanics as we played, but only mentioned once, and early, about ties being decided by money. As a result, when the end of the game came down to money, Miriam hadn't prepared properly for it. Furthermore, it was fortunate that I was able to end the game the round that I did, because both Ksenia and Miriam were set to gain a lot more than I was on the next round: I was two cities up on them, bit still needed more capacity, while they both had 17 capacity already.

The reason for this was because, in our game, fuel, especially coal, was running out each round. And so, at the end of the game, in order to ensure that I had fuel, I had to dump a 5 plant powered by coal for a 5 plant powered by oil, and so couldn't move up in production capacity to any of the 6 or 7 plants (which were all coal).

I thought Ksenia wasn't handling the mid-game plants well, but somehow she ended up essentially tied with us by the end of the game, anyway.

Mr Jack

Emily++, Eitan

Emily and Eitan end up playing with each other often, as they tend to arrive late and while we're in the middle of other games.

Emily won two games against Eitan. In the first, she was Criminal and escaped in round 4. In the second, she was Detective and jumped on Mr Jack on turn 7.

Tichu

Nadine/Abraham 140, Jon/Miriam 60

We only had time for one hand while Eitan and Emily finished their second game of Mr Jack. Nadine went out of character and called and made Tichu. Miriam also considered calling it; luckily she didn't. She ended up going out last. I went out second.

Sticheln

Jon 27, Abraham 26, Eitan 14, Emily 4

First play for everyone except me, and I had previously only played one half of a hand. I had to look up the rules (on BGG, since I have the German edition) to remember how to play.

We played four hands, and we all played better with each hand. There are a number of things going on in the game. Still, I'm unconvinced that there is any strategy in the game; it seems to be nearly all tactics. Perhaps more plays will reveal more of the strategy.

• Hand 1: Abraham 8, Jon 4, Emily -13, Eitan -17
• Hand 2: Jon 6, Abraham 2, Eitan -2, Emily -2
• Hand 3: Eitan 12, Jon 8, Emily 5, Abraham 4
• Hand 4: Emily 14, Eitan 13, Abraham 12, Jon 9

Puerto Rico

Rachel 56, Nadine 51, Ksenia 47, Miriam 40

First plays for Miriam and Ksenia. Rachel had a full Guild Hall, Factory, and Small Market. Nadine had four corns, Factory, Wharf, and Customs House. Which kind of made whatever Miriam and Ksenia had irrelevant. Actually, Ksenia was pretty close (hmmmm... this is not the first time I've underestimated her score during a game).

May 26, 2010

Participants: Jon, David, Gili, Nadine, Miriam, Abraham

Miriam is a new visitor, and new to modern gaming. But she's sharp and so picked up the games pretty quickly. She said she'd return, and I hope she does.

David came early.

Magic: The Gathering

Jon++, David

So of course, we drafted, still using the cards I picked up more than a year and a half ago. They're still new to us. Unusually, I felt like I was doing poorly in the drafting; usually I feel like I'm doing ok, and then I lose. Around a third of the way through this draft, I decided to start paying attention to the creatures that boost other creatures of the same type, something that only works in the modern expansions; but our draft was from mostly modern expansions.

I ended up with a deck of nothing but Elves, Giants, and Goblins, as well as a few utility cards. I had an Elf that brought another Elf to the top of my deck when it came into play (and the same for a Giant), an Elf that replaced any dead Elf card with an Elf token, an Elf instant that gave me an Elf token for each Elf I had, and a few others. Also, an enchantment that could be moved to another creature of the same type when the enchanted creature died.

In our first game, I had 17 land, mostly green with even amounts of red and black (7/5/5). I ended up with too much land, and, even though I kept dragging things out of the graveyard, too much land slowed me down enough for him to overrun me. I tossed out two lands (G and R; none of my R's were double), and proceeded to win the next two games, though they were close. While a synergistic deck can be disrupted, it has to be thoroughly disrupted. Fun games.

Homesteaders

David 80, Jon 71

Second play for David, and he had to re-learn the game. The first time he played he was overwhelmed. He was still overwhelmed in this game, but in a good way.

I have to say that I'm really, really liking Homesteaders. Unlike nearly every other game I've played, it has a tremendous re-playability value. There are just so many avenues to explore packed into those ten rounds. I've played five times now, and I'm nowhere near knowing what I'm doing. And yet, it's clear that one can eventually learn to know something about what one is doing. Kudos to Alex for making a game that may actually rival Puerto Rico. What's amazing about Puerto Rico, however, is that PR does it without auctions.

In our game, I racked up some debt, but I never produced any strong goods, such as copper, cattle, or gold. David had some nice gold and trade chips going, which netted him the late game win. He stole 5 points from me by taking the last building that could really have helped me, and as you see, a 5 point swing would have done it.

Jon 56, Abraham 53, David 51

We played this again later in the evening. Second play for Abraham, who also really likes the game. David now officially likes the game, too. This time, in addition to the more competitive auctioning, I managed to get the trade chip/gold thing going, which just squeaked out a victory for me. The building that let me substitute gold for cattle or copper also helped a lot.

Abraham scuttled a late building bid by David, which apparently hurt both of them.

Dominion

David 34, Jon 33, Gili 25

We played with Cellar, Chapel, Workshop, Feast, Spy, Laboratory, Torturer, Salvager, Outpost, and Envoy. We mostly played with Cellar, Spy, Laboratory, and Salvager, though I made effective use of Chapel, dumping my three Estates and a Copper on turn four. They each started with a Silver instead of a Chapel. I don't know why I lost, actually.

It's Alive

Miriam+, Nadine

Nadine taught this to Miriam. They played the basic game very quickly, and Miriam won by one card. She didn't really like the game. Oh, well.

Tribune

Gili+, Nadine, Miriam

First play for Miriam, who started off strong but fell behind as the game progressed. Still, she liked the game.

Parade

David 20, Abraham 27, Jon 46

David did in this game what Abraham did the previous time he played, which was manage to avoid taking nearly anything for most of the game. Still a cute filler game.

Tichu

Jon-David/Miriam 1080, Nadine-Abraham 720

David and I started off behind, down a few hundred points. Abraham bid and made a number of Tichus. Then David had to go.

Miriam took over for him, and this was her first play. She played well. I bid and made a Tichu or two, including in one hand, when both Abraham and I bid Tichu, and I made it, putting us in the lead, finally (we went from 480/620 to 650/550. Then we were both tied at 700.

The penultimate game gave us 80 points. And then I bid and made Tichu, and Miriam and I both went out first, which gave us the game.

May 20, 2010

Participants: Jon, Abraham, Nadine, Ksenia

Regular game night was pre-empted by Motzai Shavuot, and I put out a call if anyone wanted to play a mini-games night on a Thursday. Abraham was the only responder. However, Nadine joined a little later, and then we rope Ksenia in.

Summoner Wars

Jon+, Abraham

First play for me. I played Orcs, Abraham played Elves.

Summoner Wars is one of a number of recent grid based fantasy combat card games. I guess some people just can't help but want to try to turn the random draw of a card game into something more akin to a war game. I haven't been too impressed with attempts I've experienced until now. They tend to be slow and cumbersome games.

Worse yet, Summoner wars uses dice-based combat resolution, which I generally abhor; that, at least, I recognize as personal taste. Its inclusion is not an objective detraction from the game.

My verdict from my one play is that this is the best of the lot. While I still don't enjoy dice-based combat, those who don't mind it will find this game at least not cumbersome. It plays quickly, with ample room for both strategy and tactics, although the strategy might be gone after the first few rounds.

Essentially: you start with some guys on the board, each of whom rolls a number of dice. Each die roll above a 2 is a hit for one point of damage. Each guy takes some number of hits to kill. The object is to kill the opponent's Boss. You draw up to five cards each round, and can summon more guys using your stash of mana. You gain mana by tossing cards into your mana stash at the end of the round, or by killing opponent's guys. You also have a number of instant spells which don't cost anything (other than not throwing the card out into your mana pile).

Move around, attack, move around, attack, etc.

I played aggressively, which is what usually gets me killed in war and CC games. However, as this was a quick game, it worked quite well here. It may not always work quite as well in this game, but it should always work well enough to be a decent strategy.

Homesteaders

Jon 61, Abraham 43

First play for Abraham. It might have been my first two-player game of this.

While a very tightly-controlled game flow, and oh so obviously from the mind of a Puerto Rico fanatic, I really like this game. A lot. I hope to play it many more times. I think Abraham liked it, as well, though maybe not as much as I do.

Dungeon Lords

Abraham, Jon, Nadine, Ksenia

First play for all of us except Abraham. Dungeon Lords is a vast and sprawling epic of a game, which to me left me with the same uneasy feeling I had after playing Caylus: about 20% too much work for the game. There is both a whole lot more calculating than there should be, and then too many times when you're just turning the cards over to see what comes next without anything to do.

That said, it's a very interesting and potentially fun game. FWIW, Nadine and Ksenia both thought it was much better than Caylus and thoroughly enjoyed it, without my reservations.

It has so many mechanics and moving parts, but they think that they fit together so nicely that it's not a problem. I'm just kind of overwhelmed. We played for 3 hours, and almost half of that time was explaining the game play. The other half allowed us to make it through one year, which is half of the game, after which we called it quits for the night. Abraham was slightly ahead, despite having almost no defenses in his dungeon. I think I would have been ahead if I hadn't overlooked that I was a gold short for taxes (worth -3 points).

I suspect you will be reading more reports here on the game, soon.

January 27, 2010

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Gili, Binyamin, Avi K, Eitan, Emily, David K

A bustling night, though only seven of us were here. We played some meaty games and then looked up and it was a quarter to midnight.

Homesteaders

Gili 68, Binyamin 53, Jon 39

Binyamin wanted to learn how to play this. Second play for me, third for Gili. I played by instinct again; last time my instinct served me well. This time it didn't.

Last time I started pulling in early steel and trad chips, and that gave me access to many other good buildings mid-game. This time I didn't go steel, and I had more competition for the buildings. I kept settling for whatever came my way. I still made that work efficiently, but I wasn't raking in points like Gili was, or goods like Binyamin was.

My biggest mistake was forgetting that gold disks were the equivalent of 5 silvers as far as money goes. I didn't notice that the gold that Binyamin was producing was essentially giving him lots of extra cash to outbid me; instead I was stuck with buildings that gave two silvers, which, while it looked nice, wasn't enough.

Gili once again beat me to the mid-game 10 point building. Binyamin ended with 8 workers.

Robo Rally

Avi K, Nadine

Says Nadine: Avi did very well, planning correctly on his own, even on a track moving off the edge of the board. He won, one board, one-way.

R-Eco

Nadine 23, Avi 15

Scores approximate. Says Nadine: I won, he got the no pollution bonus.

Steam

Jon 35, Eitan 33, Nadine, Emily

Scores approximate. First play for all of us, although I'd played Age of Steam three or four times before. I read the rules while we set up.

One change from Age of Steam is that the components are more attractive; AoS had that old wargamey cardboard and black text look and feel. The biggest changes are in the income/share calculations and the cube distribution, both of which have been streamlined and simplified.

Income/Stocks: Each player starts with no cash and at 0 on the income track. Every space you move back on the income track gives you $5. Every time you deliver a cube, you get 1 bonus/link. Each bonus can be spent on either moving forward on the income track or moving forward on the victory point track. At the end of each round, you have to pay if you're negative on the income track, or you gain income if you're positive on the income track. Simple as that.

For the first few rounds, we all went negative and back up to 0 or -1. For the rest of the game, we hovered around the -1 to +2 area of the track. I'm sure the match could tell you if it's worth it to simply go high up the income track so you don't have to keep spending a bonus or two there each round.

The only other thing to note is that, at the end of the game, you get +1 VP/+2 on the income track, or -2 VP/-1 on the income track.

The cubes. At the start of the game, a bunch of piles of three cubes each are place on the side of the board. Every time someone takes "city growth", which costs $2, they can take one of the piles and place it onto any city that hasn't already had a city growth. Also, any time someone takes "urbanize", which costs $6, they can take one of the piles and put it onto the new city, which can't have any city growths after that.

Straightforward, no dice rolling, no surprises when you draw cubes from the bag. All the randomness is done before the game starts. There are no random elements in play during the game.

Another change: you don't bid for turn order. Each special ability if numbered. Holder of the lowest value from the previous round selects a new value first, followed by second lowest, etc.

Otherwise, it's the same basic game: acquire special ability and turn order card, build tracks and pay for them, run cubes, collect income or pay debt. Repeat 8 times (in a four player game). The rules about building track are still pretty difficult to explain, but the game flows smoothly.

It's still a great game. I definitely thought I was losing, but I had the most tracks on the board and so caught up in the final scoring. I also had some late 5 to 6 point cube runs.

Eitan was the first to get to 6 on his railroad track, but he seemed to be taking mostly 3 or 4 point runs, or 6 point runs that gave 2 points to Nadine. Nadine didn't get beyond two on the railroad track for most of the game, but she delivered two cubes over two links nearly every round.

The major problem with this game, and it's probably true of Age of Steam as well, though for some reason it never bothered me in that game, is the ability - necessity - to give points to other players, and to choose whom to give them to in the process. Scores are sufficiently low that this introduces a strong element of kingmaking into the game, and it's blatant and unfortunate. Plus, as Nadine says, giving points to other players is simply a "not fun" mechanic.

I'm definitely happy to play more times, but this does bug me.

Cuba

Binyamin, Gili, David K, Avi K

First play for all but Gili, second play for her. She had trouble explaining it, so Nadine gave a lot of attention to their game (instead of ours), but I don't think it helped them much.

Nevertheless, Binyamin liked the game. David misunderstood one of the tiles and played wrong because of that. I think this contributed to his feeling that the game was only "ok".

January 13, 2010

Participants: Jon, Gili, Nadine, David K, Ben, Binyamin, Abraham, Bill, Shirley, Eitan, Emily

A nice complement of gamers return. First time we had three simultaneous games going in a while. Bill and Shirley return from a US visit.

Dominion / Intrigue / Seaside

Nadine 36, Jon 31, David, Gili

We played with random cards from all sets, and ended up with four cards that let you trash cards in your deck. I used Remodel, Wharf, and Nobles. Nadine seems to win by simply taking Silvers.

Binyamin 19, Ben 18, Abraham 17

While we played with one set of treasures, they played with the other set. I didn't see the results, but apparently Ben ended up with 11 or so curses.

Homesteaders

Jon 65, Gili 48, Eitan 43

First play for me and Eitan, second play for Gili. I had been wanting to play this ever since it was demo'd for me at BGG.con, but it never worked out. However, when I can get three games running simultaneously at game night, working things out becomes easier.

Homesteaders is up there with the great Eurogames, nearly all pure resource management and optimization, tons of routes to victory, a stark progression throughout the game, and interaction through auctions and denying other people scarce rewards.

It's hard to get everything you want or need, and yet (in our game) money wasn't too tight or painful, since you can always try something else, instead. It will take several playing to figure out play beyond mere "decent" to "focused". Which is how it should be. I really love it. It has Alex Rockwell's signature all over it.

It's not perfect, however. It's actually a little short (!). And, while elegant, sensible, and straightforward, and theme looks like it should be dripping from the pieces, the theme doesn't come through much, and the game is not so ... immersive as Puerto Rico, Agricola, or some other games. It's very nerdy and calculating. You have to love planning and calculating. Trade this for that, these for those, swap these other things for one more of these, build a better income to get more of these, and gain move vp's with these others.

It's also a bit much for my analysis paralysis gamers, because they want to calculate all the possible points for all the possible swaps, and the time to value ratio for this is low. As for me, I just picked a few good paths and stuck with those that enhanced them, dismissing without calculating many other paths as not worth time thinking about. I figure that I'll play several more games, trying out a bunch of paths each game, and then I'll have a better idea about which ones work best.

In the meantime, as you can see, I won handily. I started with early steel production, and then used that for early trade chip production. Not too many of anything, but some of many things. I ignored apples and cows entirely, and only got a gold at the end for the 2 vp it gave me. I also got a few buildings that gave points for buildings of type X, and a few buildings of type X, which I recognized as fairly efficient. Lastly, the end buildings that let you buy them and then let you buy an additional building are killer buildings.

Nearly all of my buildings required no people, so I was saved in having to get people, and in having to pay for their upkeep. I wasn't contested enough in the buildings; only once, when I had to pay $9 for what I wanted. I'm sure that won't happen again, and money will feel more tight. I can't tell you much about what the others were doing; Gili had warned that trade chips were essential, and so Eitan ended up with too many of them. Gili stole the 10 point building that generates 2 points a round away from me, but I got several other nice buildings instead.

One other thing: I think the debt taking is a tad too easy. You can take them whenever you want and there is no sense whatsoever in paying them back before the end of the game. They should really cost $1 a turn to maintain, like people.

Le Havre

Binyamin 137, Abraham 121, Emily 99

I foisted this onto them; Binyamin actually wanted to play Homesteaders, but we needed to divvy the people up. First play for him and for Emily. Abraham had played once before.

Binyamin didn't like the game so much, although he may have warmed a little to it by the end. I think he compared it unfavorably to Agricola.

Tribune

Ben 29, David 26, Nadine, Bill, Shirley

First play for everyone except Ben and Nadine. Nadine loves the game. Ben enjoys it, too. David didn't warm to it much, though I don't know why. David and Ben were the only ones who fulfilled the victory conditions, so once again it came down to who finished them first for the 2 point swing. David claims that he lost due to a specific mistake he knows that he made.

Saikoro

Jon+, Eitan

I taught this wonderful little two-player quick game to Eitan, who also liked it. I wish the box would allow a tad more room to shake the dice. Otherwise, it's a neat and pretty little two player strategy game that plays differently each time and takes only about five minutes.

Bridge

Jon/Nadine, Ben/David/Binyamin

We managed to play several hands of this at the end of game night. Bridge is always fun, always good, always challenging, and always will be. It's what a great game should be.

Eitan looked on and tried to learn.

December 09, 2009

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Gili, Elijah, David, Emily, Eitan, Ksenia

We're plowing through the new board games. We started the evening by punching out many of the unpunched ones. Moments before game night started, I received my Secret Santa gift, which turned out to be Cuba, so we punched that one, too.

Alice and Wonderland Parade

Gili 11, David 13, Elijah, Nadine

I started the game, and then David sat down in my place. I was hoping he would be able to figure out the rules just from watching what people did, but I explained it to him after all. Everyone enjoys this game. Nadine thinks it's pretty random.

Dominion: Intrigue

Nadine 45ish, Gili 33ish, Elijah 32ish

For some reason, I've stopped taking notes at game nights, and thus don't know what happened in this one.

Magic: the Gathering

David+, Jon

We drafted, including the 39 new cards I brought back from America (not enough to really make much of a difference). I ended up with a wide mix of cards, and had a hard time getting down to two colors and a splash; I had no multi-mana cards.

I played BR with a splash of green (I just couldn't leave out "GG3: all your creatures deal damage as though they weren't blocked"). I don't recall what David played, but I didn't get to play my fancy green card.

Homesteaders

Nadine, David, Elijah, Gili

First play of this for everyone. Everyone was at first very confused about strategy, with so many options and no clue as to what to do first. Around mid-game, David and Nadine both said that they were enjoying it. Elijah had to leave after the eighth round, so they removed one of the columns of cards and continued.

At the end of the game, each player spent a very, very long time trying to figure out the optimum path to maximize points, which dragged the game to a halt. As a result, they said that the game was awfully fiddly. Hmmmmm.

I will have to try it out. I'm wondering if the fiddliness will disappear as you become use to the options. I don't recall who won.

Tribune

Eitan+ 39, Jon+ 36, Emily, Ksenia

First play of this for everyone. This is a very good worker placement game, which we all enjoyed.

The entire game lasted only five rounds, which was rather quick (though it took us some time to explain the game and play the rounds on our first play). Essentially collect sets of cards, and use those to collect items required for victory (or items that will grant you other items required for victory), so as to fulfill a variable victory condition. And each item also gives various benefits, all themed to ancient Rome.

Everyone else took a lot of coins, while I took almost none, gaining the few I needed from benefits. It seemed to work ok. I couldn't win any auctions, but there weren't many that I cared about.

On the fifth round, it was clear that both Eitan and I were going to have three of the six conditions necessary for victory, and we only needed three of them to win a four player game. Knowing this, I should have gone for the strategy that would have let me fulfill mine before Eitan fulfilled his, which would have been a bonus of two points more for me and less for him; I also would have forgone some other points but in favor of a gain of an equal number elsewhere. And the final result would have been me winning by a single point.

Oh well. First game is for learning.