Chanukah Games Day

Gili, Maor, Bezalel, Binyamin, Lotem, Nadine, Mace, Emily, Eitan, Eszter, Kate, Moshe

Gili had the good idea to have a games day on Chanukah, on the day that Eitan and Emily were off from university. Eszter and Gili's kids and a friend came. I met Moshe in BGG RSP, I like his philosophical posts on religion, and joined his RSP group on Facebook. He lives in Jerusalem but works nights so he's never met anyone in our group. Kate is his wife, she's very good at Eurogames, Moshe is also good but more of a wargamer, they brought their very cute and well-behaved year old daughter. Kate is from Ireland, Eszter from Hungary, Mace is from NY but lives in Australia.

Highland Clans

Gili 39, Mace 34, Emily 34, Eitan 33

My other free bgg.con game. We started learning this, then when more people arrived I stopped. Close game. Consensus was that it was a bit too random.

El Grande

Kate 33, 76,130; Nadine 41,72,118; Eszter 25,60,110; Moshe 27,54,75

Moshe had heard of this but never played, so I taught it. Same with our next two games. Eszter had played once. I started strong with special scoring, but that leads to fewer boots on the ground for the rest of the game. I was attacked a bit, and Kate caught on and played very well.

Egizia

Emily 90, Mace 82, Gili 76, Eitan 73

One of Eitan and Emily's new games, they had played once. It looked interesting, Egypt under the Romans, but also similar to other games. Emily said the starvation strategy is highly penalized but she made it work.

Princes of Florence

Nadine 62, Kate 60, Eszter 56, Moshe 49

First play for Moshe and Kate, second for Eszter. I taught it and pointed out strategy issues, but it's hard to grasp the first time. I won due to two Prestige cards, Kate played six profession cards for more points than I played my six. Bidding was very low, jesters went for 500 max. Kate and Moshe had a bidding war at the end for a second builder for him, third for her, he got it for 1000. Turns out he misunderstood the situation and didn't need it, she did.

Louis XIV

Mace 59,Gili 51, Maor 48

Gili's variant where the high value mission cards score more, Mace had the most of those.

Year of the Dragon

Nadine 114, Kate 98, Moshe 84

Another hard game to learn the first time. It's not as competitive with three. I built a lot and thought I'd lose people, but ended up managing to get a lot of rice. Everyone played low numbers on the turn track, so I was first more than I expected to be. Famine and Disease were both towards the end of the game, with War, two Fireworks and Taxes in the first half.

The kids played Clue and Munchkin.

September 07, 2011

Participants: Gili, Eitan, Emily, Rachelle, Nadine

A lively session with a new player, we ordered burgers from Flame. Rachelle is from Australia, here for her second year doing a post-doc at Hebrew U, Eitan and Emily met her through Shani.

Lo Ra

Emily 42, Rachelle 23, Nadine 18, Gili 15

Gili would have beaten me but I had one more coin. The game is fun, and people are catching on. Rachelle did a good job, she had a lot of Tribes. It's different with 4 players, you only get 3 coins.

It's Alive

Eitan 63, Rachelle 51, Nadine 50, Gili 44, Emily 42

This engendered a discussion about which were arms and which were legs, some people saw it the reverse of what it is. A lot of auctioning at the beginning. Emily's score was the same as in Lo Ra.

Louis XIV

Emily 49, Nadine 48, Gili 44, Eitan 44

Gili wanted to try a variant she came up with: the basic mission cards score 5 as usual, but the medium ones score 6, and the advanced ones 7. I don't think it made much of a difference because everyone had a pretty similar mix.

A hard fought game with a lot of thinking. First play for Eitan and Emily, Gili taught the game.

May 04, 2011

Participants: Jon, Zachary, Jessica, Gili, Aryeh, Binyamin, Nadine

Aryeh is a first-timer to the club. He has a little game experience.

Heroes of Graxia

Jessica 26, Zachary 21, Gili 21

I started this game but then left as it started to play with Aryeh. This was our first game actually finished, with most of the rules played correctly. However, we made the big mistake (at least until halfway through) of not discarding our hands and drawing a new one (ala Dominion). We were playing that you had to spend actions to draw cards. Of course, this changes the game dramatically.

I don't know what they did when they discovered this error. I know that Jessica had most of her legion decimated near the end of the game but still won the game.

Acquire

Binyamin 55,600, Jon 51,400, Aryeh 48,400

First play for Aryeh, and somewhere in the single digits for Binyamin. Aryeh was, without a doubt, the slowest player in our group, ever (yes, even slower then you, David). It was kind of a mystery, since he was obviously bright. He hesitated, asked a question about something minute, hesitated, asked another question about some minute aspect of strategy, hesitated, and then hesitated more. It seemed was very hard for him to make a decision, even when he had only one good option, but especially when he had nothing particularly good to do and simply had to place some random tile. The game took nearly three hours, of which 2.5 hours at least was Aryeh. I was growing restless, and I knew that Binyamin was going nuts.

He began to speed up a little near the end, but only marginally. And yet, other than his slowness, he was a nice guy and could be fun to play with. I think the trick is to find the right games for his personality type.

In our game, I managed to avoid the problem I had last game of only buying edge properties which took a long time to merge. I had spending cash all game. Binyamin and Aryeh were low on cash at least once each. But I still didn't win, mostly because I had fewer shares of the two big chains at the end. I made more money initially, but Binyamin managed a few quick foundings and mergers at the end.

Louis XIV

Jessica 48, Gili 43, Nadine 41, Zachary 32

Gili suggested this, I think. First plays for Jessica and Zachary. It took a long time, too, I think.

Boggle

Jessica, Gili, Nadine, Zachary

Played as a filler.

Mr. Jack

Binyamin+ (Detective), Jon (Criminal)

Binyamin caught Mr Jack on round 6, after a tipoff from the red guy. Also played as a filler.

Mu

Jon 63, Nadine 49, Jessica 6, Binyamin 0

I taught this to Binyamin and Jessica. I've figure out now to teach it starting backwards, from the score to the points, and then from the bid to the score. And then to the play. The reasons and strategy for bidding are still a complete mystery for the first 10 or 20 hands you play. But they began to warm up to it by the end of the two hands we played.

December 15, 2010

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Gili, Nechama, Binyamin, Mace

This report is done without notes and a few days after the session, so it's pretty anemic in terms of facts. I sold off a number of games to Binyamin. Making room for a few games on the way.

1955

Nadine+, Jon

I was sent this game in prototype form (pretty well done for a prototype, actually) to review. The game is, as of this posting, on Kickstarter.

The theme is the Cold War of 1955. Two players use card-driven mechanics to achieve political influence in 6 countries. On your turn, you play two cards, refill your hand, and move your spy. You win if you gain control of your opponent's country or if you gain control of any three countries.

The game immediately stuck in my head as "1960-lite". Cards allow you to either add the influence to the location identified on the card (or your home country or the country in which your spy is) or let you take the special action, but not both.

I sent some comments to the publisher. When I get a response, I will post a review on Purple Pawn.

Nadine and I each secured our own countries and one other. We fought back and forth for the remaining countries, and Nadine took it in a surprise victory.

Nadine, Gili

They played, but I don't think they finished the game.

Navegador

Binyamin 110ish, Nechama 94, Jon 91

Binyamin brought his copy and taught us. It's a fantastic game by the creator of Antike, also with a rondel, but this time with no direct confrontation. You can only take items that others need before they get to them. It's a tight economic game, and if you don't have your engine going early, you're in trouble, like I was. I finished much higher than I anticipated, actually.

A must-buy for our group. I was planning on buying Shipyard, and now I think I need both.

Louis XIV

Mace, Nadine, Gili

I don't remember what happened, except that they all ended with the same number of completed missions.

Schotten Totten

Binyamin, Jon

Binyamin was going to buy this from me, but he didn't. I had never actually played, so he taught me. It's actually better than I expected, since Lost Cities is always held as a great two-player card game and I never liked it. This is better. Luck with the special cards plays too big a role, however. Either we didn't know what we were doing (we only had the German instructions and the symbols on the special cards are worthless, so that's possible) or we need to find a way to equalize the cards or just play without them.

Bridge

Jon, Mace, Binyamin, Nadine

I don't even remember who partnered with whom.

June 23, 2010

Participants: Jon, Adam, Shira, Nadine, Gili, Elijah, Miriam, Abraham, Eitan

Welcome to Shira for her first visit. Shira lives in walking distance and has previous Eurogame experience, and so is a welcome addition. Hopefully she will return. Adam also doesn't usually come anymore, since he works on Wed evenings, but he was able to make it for a one-off.

Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation

Shira (B)+, Adam (W)

Adam taught this to Shira, who picked it up quickly enough to win.

Fairy Tale

Nadine 46, Jon 42, Gili 37, Elijah 22

We hadn't played this in a while, and we needed something light for three players. Elijah walked in as I was dealing, so he joined, though he doesn't particularly like the game.

I thought I had kind of figured out some strategy for the game, but Nadine won anyway. She claimed that she played randomly, but I kind of doubt that. She just likes to say that when she wins.

Louis XIV

Abraham 42, Shira 39, Gili 38, Nadine 35

First play for Shira, and possibly first or second for Abraham. This is an otherwise decent game where I don't particularly like the scoring system.

Cosmic Encounter

Elijah+, Jon, Miriam, Adam

Elijah always begs to play this, and I and Adam were willing, so I brought it out. First play for Miriam, whom we taught. First time teachings of this game in our house can result in disaster when the fanatics insist on adding multiple hidden powers, half the flare deck, weird destiny pile cards, and other such nonsense. I prefer to have the first game be quite limited: single revealed powers, 20 flares + the power flares, and that's it. Edicts, Kickers, Reinforcements, and the rest of the exceptional card is quite enough for a first time play.

As a result, the game went fairly straightforward (nobody drew the wild Schizoid flare that was in the deck). I played Symbiote, Miriam played Grief, Adam played Will, and Elijah played Visionary.

Steam

Miriam 36+, Jon 36, Adam 34, Elijah 28, Eitan 24

First plays for Adam and Miriam. Another great game I don't get to play often enough. It's typically a long game, but the length usually occurs during the track laying and cube moving phases. For some reason, people took a really, really long time to figure out their role selection. As a result, the game took about three hours.

Adam and Eitan commented that a five player game is more brutal, with much undercutting of track space and stealing cubes, apparently more so than with three or four players.

In our games, we all crowded around the Connecticut coastal area before branching west. Adam and Elijah began building in the Canada area extending south, while I just continued north and central through Mass/NY.

I was the first to start churning out victory points. Miriam went to 10 income which I though was kind of a waste, but somehow she had a nice central route and just managed to match my score at the very end, whereupon she won on the tie. Adam was frustrated at one point that train power could not exceed 6, as he had a few 7 link routes he wanted to run.

In the end, we all had about 9 links.

San Juan

Abraham 35, Gili 31, Nadine 30

They played this to wrap up while we finished Steam.

February 18, 2009

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Gili, Binyamin, Bill, David K

Welcome back Bill from several months in the US.

R-Eco

Jon 15, Gili 15, Bill 5, Nadine -1

Played as an opener. Bill's first time. Gili doesn't really like the game. We played with my usual variant where all the chips are shuffled and placed randomly (face up); makes for a more interesting game, in my opinion.

Age of Steam

David 110, Bill 109, Jon 80

This is one of my top ten games, and only the third time I got to play it. First play for both David and Bill. I really love this game and Antique, both of which have a lot more direct confrontation than the usual Eurogames, so that must say something.

Unfortunately, I lost big-time, entirely because of Bill. Not only did he screw me three times during the game, but he screwed me royally three times during the game. None of that "Oh, I guess I have to pay one more coin" screws, or "Oh, I guess I'll have to deliver a sub-optimal good" screws. But a real heavy metal "I am out of the game; I lose 10 income points" screws. And not once, but three times. Kicked me hard when I was down.

I guess I left myself open to it. I'm not used to playing with aggressive players. We don't usually play games where this type of aggression is possible. It's not like he targeted me just for the heck of it; each time he played the right move for himself. I just got caught in his way because I started on the same side of the board as him. David started on the other side of the board, and so remained largely undisturbed for the first half of the game. Lesson learned.

Three player Age of Steam is not quite as satisfying as four or five player, but it's still a fantastic game of route planning, money management, and delivery. Our game took about 3 hours.

Stone Age

Gili 164, Binyamin 163, Nadine 147

First game for all of them. I didn't see this game play out, but the board looked a lot like the board from Pillars of the Earth. About 2 hours.

Louis XIV

Gili, Binyamin, Nadine

Second game for Binyamin. About an hour and a half. I don't know the scores.

October 19, 2008: Games Day

Participants: David, Avi (David's son), Mace, Shachar (Mace's son), Koby, Gili, Jon, Gilad, Nadine, Elijah, Binyamin, Rivka (B's wife), Tikva Shira (B's kid), Zvi Yehuda (ditto), Devora (ditto), Iska (ditto), Adam, Amir, Omri, Roee, Rudo, Yosef, Michael (Elijah's dad), Saarya, Rachel

A pleasant games day. Amir, Omri, Roee, Rudo, Gilad, and Koby all came from the coastal areas, which was nice.

We used both sukkahs, and sometimes had to look for extra chairs. At night, we also had to find a light for the other sukkah and finally managed to get it plugged in.

I took notes of the games played, but worse notes than usual, and I fear I might have missed a game or two. Here's what I got:

Cosmic Encounter

Mace+, Shachar, Elijah, Binyamin, Adam

I think that was the list. Several of these were new players, yet they still played a six player game, double powers, comets and asteroids, and what looked like half the flare deck.

Mace got to four bases fairly quickly as Prophet / Loser, but was then ganged up upon. The game then extended for another three and a half hours, until Mace finally managed to win in the end, anyway. Other powers in the game included Pentaform, Vampire, Plant, Mirror, and others.

For Sale

Binyamin and family played this.

Go

Adam 38, Michael 24

This took them a while on a full board. Michael is somewhat better than I am, and so proved a closer match for Adam.

Kingsburg

David 45, Gilad 44, Gili 39, Koby, Nadine

Koby brought this game and taught it to the others.

Lo Ra

This is Nadine's Jewish themed version of the game Ra. Played in the other sukkah.

Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation

Adam (dark)+, Binyamin (white)

Frodo was stomped to death by the Balrog while trying to pass through Minas Tirath.

Zvi Yehuda wanted to play this later in the day, but no one had time to explain the English to him.

Louis XIV

Michael 52, Yosef 51, Elijah 49

First plays for all of them, they all really liked it. Good thing we still have Nadine's copy around. It may see more play again.

Magic: the Gathering

David+, Jon

David and I got one draft and game in, and e beat me as usual, even though I played a four color deck and wasn't mana screwed, and he played a three color deck and was.

Mission: Red Planet

Rudo 54, Omri 47, Jon 36, Nadine 23

This is an are control game from Bruno Faidutti, and has his characteristic elements of chaos and bluffing. Which, unfortunately, I don't like, although I like Bruno Faidutti.

You have ten rounds, scoring after rounds 5, 8, and 10. You have four ships active at any one time going to 10 different areas of Mars, and holding between 2 to 5 astronauts. And you have 9 character cards, that let you a) add astronauts to one or two ships, and b) do a special action, including moving your astronauts, swapping an astronaut, and redirecting or blowing up a ship. The latter two, in particular, are the most chaotic parts.

Lastly, you have bonus points for a mission, or can put secret cards under many of the areas, so that, at the end of the game, that area scores nothing, or double, or gives some other random bonus. More chaos.

Each round, each player selects one of their characters and then turns it over in turn order, like Citadels. You only get your cards back if you play character 1.

Nadine and I lost mostly because we didn't understand the vast importance of the areas with more points, which exponentially accumulate in latter scoring rounds (I somehow thought they would be linear). So we didn't fight for them more.

It's not a bad game, and certainly not as annoying as Assassin, but I still screwed Nadine out of her moves twice at the beginning of the game, which was probably not enjoyable for her.

And there's no reason for it. If the cards are played like El Grande, instead of like Citadels, and if the cards placed on regions are placed open instead of closed, the game looks to be vastly more fun and interesting.

Mr Jack

Nadine (Detective)+, Jon (Criminal)

I survived with three suspects until round 8. I only had an unseen Jack in one round, and Nadine had to ensure that I didn't escape, preventing her from discovering anyone that turn.

Nadine then accused the right person, and not entirely at random. One of the three she had eliminated with a card from the red guy. And one of them she thought I had been positioning more for exit than the other.

Notre Dame

Yosef+, Gili, Saarya, +/Jon

I took over for someone in round four, but I forget who.

Power Grid

Shachar 17, Jon 16, Elijah 15++, Avi 15+, Mace 15-

We played on the German map, missing the south coast. Aside from the western area, prices were pretty expensive. All of us except for Mace started on the western shore, anyway.

Larger plants came out fairly early, and I snagged my entire plant needs before anyone else. Still, because I was behind in cities, I was producing less money, and so everyone else managed to catch up with their plants and building. In the end, I simply couldn't build more than Shachar owing to less cash. I'm still not quite sure how that worked.

Elijah and Mace were up to 14 cities when we were all at 12 on the last round. They had a bidding war over the only plant that would let one of them win, but it went too high for either the winner or loser to win. If it hadn't Elijah could have won after all.

Puerto Rico

Rachel 64, Jon 58+, Adam 58-, Nadine 56

Rachel was convinced she wasn't going to win when Nadine and I took second big buildings and Adam secured her first. She and Adam both had Harbors to Nadine and my Factories. But she played on anyway, taking a Discretionary Hold, something I probably should have taken.

It was all very close, but Rachel managed to ship 43 shipping points to my 21. Yowza.

Race for the Galaxy

Nadine 54, Gilad 40, Roee 29

First play for Roee.

R-Eco

David 12, Avi 7, Mace 7, Shachar 2, Koby -1

The opening game. Played again at least once later during the day.

Samurai

Zvi Yehuda 9++, Binyamin 9+, Amir 9-, Adam 8

No further info.

Settlers of Catan

Yosef 13, Elijah 6, Gili 5

Yosef won every game he played tonight, I believe. They played to 13, but it didn't help.

Shadows Over Camelot

Zvi Yehuda, Tikva Shira, Omri, Roee, Rudo, Avi

First plays for all but the first two, I taught them and then hovered around a bit to help them start. Luckily, Nadine was also sitting nearby and could fill them in on a few rules that I forgot, as well as help Avi on his first game.

Taj Mahal

Yosef 65, Gili 59, Elijah 28

First play for Yosef. Nadine and I looked over in mid-game, and Gili had a 20 point lead. We said that they should just concede, although Yosef did have a handful of cards.

Well, it seemed that Yosef was more persevering than we realized, making a dramatic comeback.

Tower of Babel

Yosef, Rivka, Devora, Iska

First play for Yosef, and Devora and Iska are very small kids, so I'm sure they weren't experienced players. I don't know any more about the game.

Ubungo

Rivka, +, +

Rivka played this shape game with two of her kids.

Year of the Dragon

Nadine 128, David 108, Gili 102, Gilad 81, Koby 72

First plays for Gilad and Koby.

Omri 107, Nadine 105, Rudo 102

First plays for Omri and Rudo.

February 28, 2007

Participants: Jon, David K, Nadine, Adam, Elijah, Zack, Ben, Gili, Josh, Idit

I had had enough of work by mid-day, so I invited David to join me a bit early. In this way, we were able to get in a few games before game night actually started.

Netrunner

Jon (Runner)+, David (Corp)

David and I are beginning to grasp the game, and only twice needed to look in the rulebook. I was able to grasp the possibilities of a few cards that David had overlooked when he was Runner last.

Only this game did I grok that accessing traps can hurt you, even if they are accessed from HQ or R&D. That was a fun lesson.

I made many fast and furious runs on HQ and R&D until David put enough Ice in place, and even then I kept doing it whenever he didn't have enough bits to rez the Ice. My runs on HQ were spectacularly unsuccessful, but my runs on R&D eventually gave me the win, although it was close.

Both of us lamented that what seemed to be missing from the game were "Instants" like there are in Magic. If I'm making a run, there is nothing the Corp can do about it by playing special cards from his hand. This eliminates a bit of the tension in the game.

Zertz

Jon+, David

I introduced this to David, who spent a long time calculating each move. I took an early lead with a forced swap that gave me two jumps to his one; I probably won't get away with that again in a future game.

After that, we did some swapping, but I was able to get the better colors, until I needed only a single gray or white ball to win, while he still needed at least two more balls to win. He conceded.

I still like the game a lot.

Boggle

Jon+, Nadine+

While waiting for David to make his moves in Zertz, I played a few games of this as a filler. We played two racks, both of which had a paucity of words. I came up with about 7 words in the first game, two of which Nadine didn't have. The second rack was about tied, with Nadine having maybe one more word.

Louis XIV

Jon 60, Elijah 43, Adam

I think this is my first win for Louis, and it was not only a win but a massacre. This was Adam's second game, and he needed a refreshing of the rules.

It started out innocently enough, with me slightly behind after the first round, even. I had only managed one mission, while Adam and Elijah both had two. However, I had gained a slew of peripheral items from the previous round, including coats-of-arms, ax extra influence card, money, and an influence marker on the board. This allowed me to dominate the second round. At the end of it, Adam couldn't complete a single mission, Elijah could complete only one, and I completed two.

I ended the second round the same as the first, with tons of peripherals, and this time I was last in the bidding order. I ended up with three additional moves after all the other players had placed. Adam and Elijah both went to four missions, while I was at seven. The game was already over at that point.

In the end, I ended with a hand full of coats-of-arms, too, to add insult to injury.

Power Grid

Ben 17+, David 17-, Zack 16, Gili 16

They played on the East and Central coast, which are the cheapest areas. A glance in mid-game revealed that their fuel market was nearly exhausted, or completely exhausted, the entire game.

As usual, a close game, with the win decided on a tie (not my favorite mechanism, actually). The game took around three and a half hours, as people added and added again near the end of the game (also not my favorite mechanism).

Puerto Rico

Nadine 41, Josh 36, Idit 31

Nadine taught Idit how to play, and this was Josh's fourth game. Apparently, they all enjoyed it. Idit didn't have any large buildings at the end of the game, and her settlements were nearly all corn and sugar, a result of some Hacienda activity.

Zendo

Adam (master), Jon, Elijah

Adam didn't have the Icehouse pieces, so we played "Sentence Zendo". Adam wrote a sentence that was, and a sentence that wasn't. We went through about a dozen sentences, and I had no idea.

Elijah and I started guessing "sentences" that were not grammatically correct, and even simply words, which seemed to annoy Adam, who said that we really should only be allowed to guess real sentences.

I was thinking two structurally - number of words or letters, and so on - when it turns out that the rule was that the sentence have "something to do with nature".

The Menorah Game

Adam+, Nadine, Jon

We were casting about for some fillers. I suggested this and both of them agreed well enough.

Both of them prefer the basic game. Nadine was a little bored at the end of it, however, I think. But it's quick.

I still like it a lot.

San Juan

Adam, Nadine, Jon

We only made it partially through the game and then broke for Bridge. I had nothing better to open with, so I decided to give Crane another try, despite being nearly 100% positive that it is a wretched, wretched card. Why? It turns all of your 2 and 3 VP cards into 1 or 2 VP cards, and it also destroys all the VPs you get from having more buildings at the end of the game.

In my game, I turned my Indigo into Coffee, and then debated on whether to turn it into Silver or Library on round three. I chose Library. This netted me an additional card from Prospector every round, but in the meantime, Nadine and Adam were gaining 4 cards each every two rounds from Production and Trading, while I had no production buildings at all.

When I finally got out a Tobacco building, we abandoned the game. Eh; I might still have won.

Bridge

David/Jon, Ben/Nadine

We played five hands of this. It is so sublime a game, that we don't really keep score. We simply zen the experience.

I had fairly few points, but David had good hands. He ended up playing three of the five hands (making one of them, I believe).

Go

Adam+++, Zack

Adam taught Zack how to play this on a 9x9 board, and then they played three games. Adam spotted him first four, then five, then six stones, which gives you an idea of how they turned out.

Cosmic Encounter

Elijah, Josh, Idit

Elijah's favorite game, was a game that Josh wanted Idit to learn, anyway. I have no further info on how it turned out, or what powers they played. I know that they played with Lucre and (against my advice, as usual) comets.

I heard some good news and some bad news from Josh and Idit. The good news is that they're engaged (Mazal Tov). The bad news is that they are returning to the U.S. indefinitely in May and getting married there. Oh well.