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.

October 13, 2010

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Mace, Gili, Nechama, Elijah, David K

Gili brought her friend Nechama. She pretty much spoke only Hebrew, and my Hebrew isn't terribly good. I hope she enjoyed herself.

San Juan

Elijah 39, Jon 37, Mace 35, Nadine 32

I haven't played this in a while, mostly because I really wish it had a good expansion. I generally remember the game as good, but not particularly special, but when I play it it's always a slightly better game than I remember.

Nadine wasn't particularly looking forward to playing it. This was Mace's first play.

Elijah started with an early Prefecture followed by an early Library and Tobacco. Nadine started with Coffee and Mace with Carpenter. I had nothing to build in the first round. I finally got a Prefecture going by round 3, however, and Nadine built the third. Meanwhile, Mace built Quarry to go with his Carpenter and also ended the game with both City Hall and Palace.

I had Guild Hall, but it wasn't enough.

R-Eco

David 26, Nechama 15, Gili 10

First play for Nechama. David was the only player who tossed out cards, and he tossed out 8 of them. Apparently illegal dumping pays off.

Taj Mahal

Elijah 34, Gili 32, Nechama 32, Mace 29, Nadine 28

First plays for Nechama and Mace. It was apparently Elijah's night, and apparently not Nadine's night.

Oddly for a five player game, commodities didn't do to well and path connections did pretty well. I saw a few fierce battles out of the corner of my eye.

Magic: the Gathering

David+++, Jon+

We played with roughly the same cards that I played with Mace last time, having not properly mixed the random card pile before drafting.

I honestly thought that I had a decent chance at winning a few games with a W/G deck, 8 Plains to 6 Forests and mostly white cards. However most of my games came down to mana screw again. I drew 5 forests and no plains for much of the first game. I drew 3 forests and no other land at all for nearly all of the last game.

I won game 2 partly because David didn't draw quite enough land to support his G/U/R deck, and partly because he drew a few times from his discards by accident instead of from his deck. I thought I was dong well, with a few white cards that sent his creatures back to his deck and a few direct disenchant spells, neutralizing all of his enchantments. But apparently I was fooling myself.

I was doing fine in game 3, but I left myself blockerless at 14 life against his 1/1 creature, and he won instantly with two Giant Growth's and a spell that lets his creature deal its power in damage to target creature or player.

Mu

David 217, Mace 129, Jon 108, Nadine 55, Elijah 36

I gave this game the short shrift after our previous and first encounter with it, as it seemed like the strength of your cards determined your success and that the play with five players was somewhat random. It appeared to work better with four players, but that made the game kind of irrelevant since there are some much better four-player card games at hand.

Feedback on the Geek guilted me into giving this another try. Elijah and Nadine both vaguely remembered not liking the game, but unspecifically enough that they were willing to try it again. This was the first play for both David and Mace.

This time was a much better experience. In fact, even Nadine admitted that she found the game interesting after a few hands. Everyone else also said that they liked it.

I got a lot of laughs when explaining the rules, which are not really that complicated, though each of the few major rules has a number of niggly points to make it work, and the two tables (bid vs points required, points taken vs bonus) just have to be memorized or referred to on each hand. But it's really not all that complicated if you're used to other trick taking or bidding games, especially those that reward points based on the specific cards taken (as opposed to tricks taken).

The each-man-for-himself aspect works fairly well. As the hands progressed we began to feel the game was less random, and possibly even less luck-dependent on the cards (thought still highly so), and more for the strategy of the bidding and play. And our bidding got more aggressive.

Looks like this will hit the table again, after all.

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.

December 02, 2009

Participants: David K, Jon, Gili, Nadine, Emily, Eitan, Abraham

I'm back, with many games from BGG.con. I wanted to break out two of them, but David insisted that I wait, since I would have to do all the explaining for both.

Dominion: Intrigue

Nadine 16, Eitan 10, Jon 9, David 8

Breaking out the new Dominion expansions didn't count, because we already knew how to play Dominion. I'd played with a few cards here and there, but the others hadn't.

Intrigue make planning harder, since a number of cards cycle or trash cards out of other player's hands. That may be more fun for people who like chaos, but it's a bit negative to those who like planning. Still, only a bit, since Dominion's usual chaos outweighs the chaos from those cards.

Many of the cards give nice choices and combos.

We played only with Intrigue cards, including ... oh ... whatever. Suffice to say, the most frequently heard statement was not "Damn, I've got seven", but "Damn, I've got four". And four wasn't much use.

It took me forever to get to five or higher. I think, in the entire game, I got to 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10 each exactly once. No one is quite sure how Nadine won, including Nadine. But she got two Provinces well before anyone else could.

Dominion: Seaside

Abraham 36, Gili 28, Emily 26

I think Eitan and Emily had both played with Seaside cards online. Gili hadn't. I didn't see the game.

Tichu

David/Eitan 200, Jon/Nadine 155

We played this while we waited for Seaside to finish. David and Eitan both went out first on the first hand. On the second hand, I called and made Tichu.

Le Havre

Jon 109, Abraham 96, Gili 59, Nadine 42

I may have the bottom two scores mixed up, but whatever. First play for everyone except me, second play for me. We played the short game, which was around 3.5 hours long, including setup (first time for me) and explanation. Second game should go somewhat shorter.

Abraham and I love the game. Nadine complained starting around mid-way through until the end that the game is too complicated and not enough fun. I said that, like Agricola, you have to know the flow of the game and all the cards and how they can work before you can possibly understand what to do during the game. When Nadine got home, she emailed me that she thinks the longer game with the special buildings and more time to pay off ships will be a better game.

I think the only thing we got wrong was that Abraham sorted the buildings by build value instead of card number. That made the wharves come out fairly late.

Abraham bought or built buildings at every opportunity. Even when they didn't help his VP value, he gained by not having to pay for the building, or having others pay him for them. He also smartly bought the buildings which produced the most food, and these were used the most often. But he had to sell a building once or twice.

My first game I ignored the ships and just sent my goods over to the bridge at the end of the game (netting 19 points). This time I tried to do the ships, but I'm fairly sure I did something wrong with the approach, and I was only able to use my ship once, at the end of the game. Of course, that may be because I built the last two available buildings, which net me 40 points in the process (so was probably worth it).

Gili and Nadine both struggled with debt, and they also couldn't see all the cards and so missed some opportunities, as well as some rules, being their first game.

Pillars of the Earth

David, Emily, Eitan

David agreed to play one of the previous games, so as not to have to wait for my explanation. But it was the first play of this for both Eitan and Emily.

I didn't see the results, but I assume David won.

San Juan

Eitan, Emily

First play for both, the game ended in a tie.

July 22, 2009

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

A lovely bunch of regulars.

San Juan

Abraham 24, Gili 22, Jon 22

First play for Abraham, though he has played Puerto Rico and Race for the Galaxy, so this wasn't much of a stretch. Of course, he didn't know the cards as well as we did.

That didn't stop him from putting together an awesome synergy for trading: Market Post, Well, Trading Post, and so on, all working perfectly together. Gili followed with higher paying production buildings and Aqueduct, while I had only my lone Indigo Plant the entire game, going the Quarry and Carpenter route. Word to the wise: if your opponents are crafting and trading, you're not going to make much money unless you can benefit from their role selections, too.

Still, I had good luck picking 6 point buildings. Abraham didn't pick any, so he just built quickly to end the game as fast as possible while he was ahead. Gili got out a Guild Hall and I got out a City Hall, but it wasn't quite enough.

R-Eco

David 17, Nadine 6, Bill 2

First play for Bill (or perhaps second). David likes this game a lot, which surprises me, as it doesn't strike me as his type of game.

Stone Age

David 160ish, Abraham 150ish, Bill 110ish

Don't have the exact scores, but something like that. David thought he made mistakes, so naturally he won anyway, though Abraham came close.

Caylus

Jon 124, Nadine 107, Gili 80ish

We searched around for a game that both Nadine and Gili liked, since they don't like my favorite games. I'm less than enthused by Caylus, but don't play games only if I hate them (like Fluxx). I find Caylus to be overly dry, overly long, and - strange as it may sound - not requiring too much thinking. It's actually a pretty forgiving game if you keep your eye on the victory points. Or perhaps I just don't care who wins, after five levels of converting money to workers to cubes to buildings to more building to yet more buildings.

Nadine took the first favor, I but I quickly jumped ahead in favors. I got to the end track in cubes, so that I could get the gold cubes I needed, and of course the end track in buildings, which is required to win. I also don't neglect the gray buildings, whose point return is quite good, or the castle.

The provost doesn't get much play in a three player game; I lost out on using one building on one turn, which I couldn't really afford to use, anyway. We all seemed to have a lot of money most rounds.

And since we hadn't played in a while, and the board is really poorly designed, Gili got confused by the rule of which level of the favor track you can use in which phase. I also reminded them about placing workers on your own building for only one coin, even after others have passed. Knowing the rules better gave me a slight but unfair advantage.

Dominion

Abraham 45, David 31, Nadine 20ish

The only card that trashed other cards was the Thief, and it trashed your opponent's cards. David used Thief a few times only to realize that he was helping rather than hurting his opponents by trashing their coppers. Abraham drew a completely synergistic deck which drew itself in total on every turn.

David reached a buying power of 19 on one turn, which is the most I've ever seen.

Antike

Jon 12+, Bill 6

First play for Bill. A learning experience. I really really love this game, because, while conflict is an option, you don't lose much if you lose a combat. The object is to gain points, not territory. And no dice rolls!

Bill was trailing on my Know-hows, and working at expansion, ignoring my immanent poise to strike. I then swooped in an sacked two of his temples, netting two destroyed temple points, one "five cities" point, and one "seven seas sailed" point in one turn. Since it was getting late, and I was now winning 12 to 6, I suggested he resign, which he did. But he liked the game.

November 21. 2007

Participants: Yitzchak, Binyamin, Nadine, Ari, Jon

I returned to Israel this evening, and caught only the tail end of the game. I substituted for Ari in Cosmic when he had to leave. Notes are sparse, and mostly Nadine's.

San Juan

Yitzhak 33, Binyamin 30, Nadine 28

I have no further information.

Cosmic Encounter

Binyamin + Subversive, Assassin; Nadine + Filth, Virus; Ari/Jon + Prolong, Grudge; Yitzhak Cavalry, Vampire

I didn't inherit a particularly good position, but neither was it terrible. Binyamin eventually won jointly with Nadine, by arrangement.

Nadine adds: Always fun, but this went on a long time as a defensive game with few
foreign bases until over an hour into the game.

Welcome back to Jon who got home from the airport then came over later as Ari was leaving.

Bridge

Binyamin, Nadine, Yitzchak, Jon

Just a few rounds to cap off the night.

November 14, 2007

Participants: David, Gili, Nadine, Hillel

I was away in Canada, so Nadine took notes.

San Juan

David 47, Nadine 29, Gili 28

We took Library out of the game because David thinks it's too powerful,
which it probably is. I had no 6 point cards even with Prefecture and
lots of Counselling. Gili had a Tower and all the cards. She didn't get
to build her Palace at the end. David got 14 points from Guild Hall, and
had Palace.

Power Grid

Nadine 18/18, David 17/17+, Hillel 17/17-, Gili 15/15

We had no rounds of Step 2. At the end of the game only 3 power plants
were left on the board. We didn't think I'd be able to build to 18
cities at the end, but I was able to buy 5 cities in the Northeast for
under 120. Otherwise David would have won a tie at 17 cities on money.
It seemed somewhat lucky to me though I'm probably improving somewhat.
It was Hillel's first time playing. We gave him advice, but mostly he
caught on to the strategic aspects and did well.

October 31, 2007

Participants: Nadine, Yitzchak, Gili, Dylan, Genia

First game day out of three that will be in Nadine's house while I'm away in Canada. The report is from Nadine.

San Juan

Yitzchak 44, Gili 36, Nadine 29

Gili joined late and we let her take extra cards and builds to catch up.
Yitzchak did a good job with a Quarry and Library early in the game.

Pirate's Cove

Dylan 37, Nadine 32, Yitzchak 31, Genia 29, Gili 28

We agreed that there is too much luck in this game - both in selecting
islands and dice rolling. The game is not long enough for the luck to
even out. But it's a lot of fun to play. Thanks to Gili for bringing it
again. Genia did well and was leading for most of the game, but the
resultant attacks had their effect, even though she beat a Navy ship.
Yitzchak was also leading, tied with Dylan, but was destroyed in the last
round. I was behind most of the time til the end.

It's Alive

Yitzchak 50, Dylan 46, Genia 42, Gili 39, Nadine 39

Most of us were waiting for a long time for one missing card. We had a
good time playing. Gili got a lot of Villagers, usually followed by a
Coffin.

October 24, 2007

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Yitzvhak, David, Gili, Orah, Hillel

This was my last games night in Israel before a trip to North America. Nadine will be hosting game nights for the next three weeks.

Gili finally returned after her vacation, and she brought her mom, Orah, with her. Hillel is a new player who found us through my blog. He enjoyed himself, so hopefully he will be back. I didn't get to play with either of them, however.

Colossal Arena

Nadine 11, Jon 10, David 3, Yitzchak 0

The last time I played this I was not impressed. And no one has been hankering for it since then. So I was thinking of adding it to my trade list. Before I did, I wanted to give it another try.

Essentially, the game consists of selecting 8 out of the 12 available creatures to do battle. To do this, you need to separate out the 12 cards for each creature type from the pack of cards, as well as 11 spectator cards, and a few referee cards. The others are set aside.

You lay out the descriptive cards of each of the eight creatures at the top of the table. Each battle is "fought" in successive rows on the table beneath the top row. At the end of each battle, the lowest valued creature is no longer in play. The next battle is fought one row further down, with one less creature. After five battles, only three creatures remain.

Battles are fought by players placing cards corresponding to the creatures in the current battle row one by one. You can cover up a card already in place. As soon as all creatures fighting in a round have a card, the creature with the lowest number is eliminated. If there is a tie for lowest number, keep playing until there isn't. Cards are valued 0 to 10 for each creature and must be played on that creature. A card from single set of spectator cards valued 0 to 10 may be played on any creature.

Each round, you bet, place a card, and draw back up to 8 cards. Special cards or abilities may come into play.

During the game, you place bets on these creatures. The earlier the battle, the more valuable the bet. In the first round you can also place an additional secret bet. Only one person can place a bet on one creature each round, and only after the creature already has at least one card on it from this turn.

The last rule is the one I missed the first time I played and makes all the difference. It is a critical rule that makes the game far more enjoyable. Without it, you can bet on anything you want and then play a card on that bet. Instead, you have to play a card which might enable someone else to place the bet on it before it gets back to you.

Each creature also confers a special ability for you if a) you place a card on it this round, and b) you have the highest valued total bets on this creature.

It's actually an interesting game. The most interesting part is that you can place either low cards on creatures you don't like or high cards on creatures you do. You can end the game with a high card on the last remaining creature without a card yet, dooming some other creature, or a low card on that creature, dooming it instead. Assuming you have the card you need.

However, the game still has a few problems, which we noticed the last time, too.

The biggest problem is the point system, Like Quo Vadis, point scores in this game are simply too low and therefore likely to tie all too often. It's just not enough, and not enough ways to score. Furthermore, the betting system makes most of the bets fairly worthless and most of the creature special powers also fairly worthless. It's a drag on the game. Higher valued bets, the last row being worth something, and interim scoring opportunities ala El Grande would make the game much better.

The second problem is design. The spectator cards look exactly like the creature cards and are impossible to distinguish except by reading the fine print. They should have big words saying "Spectator" on them. And many of the creature cards have nearly the same coloration or name, making them hard to distinguish, too. There is no special corner symbol; you have to hold the cards so that the entire top of each card is visible. This makes setting up the game, and figuring out what you have in your hand difficult.

One other problem was remembering which creatures were eliminated from play each round at a quick glance. This information is important since you need to know how many creatures remain this round. Flipping over their card in the top row wasn't good enough, and in fact made it worse. Instead, we collected all the cards previously played on those creatures and made upside down piles in their column in the current row.

I think my problem last time also may have stemmed from too few players. You definitely need a full complement of betting to make the game interesting.

It's not going to hit the table often. However, it's also not too expensive, so not worth my effort in carrying it over to the U.S. to trade, as I doubt I would get much for it.

In our game, Yitzchak had bad luck and got eliminated often. Nadine and I seemed to overlap on most creatures, which made us allies. I had the nicer bets, but she had a secret bet which gave the final win.

San Juan

Gili 40, Hillel 34, Orah 34

Gili taught this to Orah and Hillel and they played the entire game with open hands.

Bridge

Jon/David, Yitzchak/Nadine
Played as a filler. I opened 2c on one of the hands.

Power Grid

Jon 18, David 17, Yitzchak 16

A win for me, which either means I'm getting better or that my opponents are making more mistakes. In an unusual turn of events for PG, it seemed like I was winning most of the game and then I actually did.

David took the early 8, I had the 5, and Yitzchak the 4. Yitzchak grabbed an early 20 which set the stage for too much coal usage. I seemed to lose the battles for all the best plants, but the others had to spend an extra 10 or 20 to get them. Instead, I built a lot of cities, kept the plant market cycling quickly, and ensured that I wasn't too dependent on the fuel others needed.

They eventually bought some green plants which reduced the resource supply problem, although coal was always still in short supply. I avoided it, since I was always buying fuel last and didn't want to be stuck without any.

Near the end, I had the least plant capacity, but I had 15 cities to their 10 each. But they still needed to buy plants because, even though they had more capacity than me, they still didn't have 17 or 18. So they were stuck buying plants and cities, while I only had to buy plants. And there were enough big plants to go around in Stage 3. In the end, neither of them could afford to get to more than 17 plant capacity, while I raised mine to 18 and bought my last city.

Pirate's Cove

Gili 34, Hillel 30, Orah 27, Nadine 27
Gili brought and taught this. There seemed to be an awful lot of dice rolling and combat from where I was looking. Nadine said the game was nice, but essentially a nice war game, with Eurogame chrome. Battles didn't eliminate your ships, just your cash, so it wasn't entirely war gamey.

August 15, 2007

Participants: Jon, Yitzchak, Adam, Gili, Rachel A

Ah, the light heady days of summer, when most people are on vacation.

San Juan

Jon 43, Yitzchak 40

I plunked down a first turn Prefecture, which is fairly deadly in two-player. I followed it up with a Smithy, Silver, and a rare-for-me Tower. I got the three six-point cards and managed to hold on to them and build them by the end of the game.

Yitzchak had Library around building number four or so, so I kept taking Prospector to make his life difficult. Eventually he built Prefecture, Quarry, Smithy, and Carpenter. He built three big buildings, too, and one more building than me, but his Triumphal Arch wasn't as lucrative as my Palace.

Lost Valley

Gili 13, Yitzchak 9, Jon 8, Adam 8

I almost started Industria, but these guys had never played Lost Valley, and I liked the game enough to play it again. Especially since I know that some of the members who didn't come don't like it as much.

Adam went off in one direction where there wasn't much mountain gold, although he eventually mined one mountain hex for three chips. Gili went off and mined her own mountain hex for four chips, which won her the game. Yitzchak followed me around a bit, which slowed both of us down.

Eventually, I mined three chips out of one mountain, giving him the last one. He went off to find river gold.

As Gili was ahead, she explored like crazy. With the last unexplored tile placed, the river was immediately capped. No one had been exploring the river, so it was only four segments long. The game then ended too quickly for me to open up a new mine.

Everyone appears to have enjoyed the game. I'm looking forward to playing again.

"Sawmill" in Hebrew is מנסרה (mansera). "Saw" is מסור (massor). --Adam

It's Alive

Jon+, Adam, Yitzchak

Adam suggested this, and we played the basic game. I massed a lot of money at the beginning of the game. I was also the only one to be hit with Villagers, first a 4 and then a 6. Then a few more to boot, which I ignored.

Despite this, I won the game, which only goes to show you that it's possible. I kept careful count of how little money my opponents had. They never had quite so little that I could abuse them, but still. I also got a little lucky pulling the card I needed after a few rounds at the end, although I had enough money to buy it from anyone's graveyard, too.

Puerto Rico

Jon 60, Yitzchak 57, Rachel 56, Adam 40

Rachel requested this, and may even have done better if her attention hadn't drifted for a few rounds in the middle of the game. We played the standard building set.

-1-
Y: Settler/Quarry, Adam takes corn, Rachel tobacco, I take coffee. I end up with a lucrative coffee monopoly during the game. Rachel does almost as well with her tobacco.
A: Builder/Small Market. Rachel builds Small Market.
R:Mayor
J:Prospector

-2-
A:Trader+, after some urging from me. If he does something like Settler and then Rachel takes Craftsman+, I will Trade+. If Rachel takes Trader+ and I Craftsman+, Yitzchak has no good and won't Captain+.
R:Craftsman+
J:Captain+
Y:Prospector

-3-
R:Builder+/Small Sugar.
J:Settler+/corn. After this phase, Adam and I have coffee plantations, while Rachel and Yitzchak have tobacco plantations.
Y:Mayor+
A:Prospector

-4-
J:Builder/Coffee. Yitzchak builds Tobacco.
Y:Mayor. Now, Yitzchak will be trading tobacco, and I'll be trading coffee. Rachel has Sugar and Small Market, while Adam has Indigo and Small Market.
A:Settler
R:Craftsman+. I thought this was rather a bad move, giving Yitzchak Trader++ next turn and a tobacco to trade. As a result of this move, cash was high for the rest of the game.

-5-
Y:Trader++/tobacco. Of course. Adam trades indigo, Rachel sugar, I coffee. Trading House empties.
A:Mayor
R:Captain++
J:Prospector+

-6-
A:Builder+/Factory. While Factory was indeed a scarcer resource than Coffee, this allowed my coffee monopoly to continue for longer. Rachel and Yitzchak both build Harbor. I's at 6 doubloons, so I wait.
R:Craftsman+
J:Trader/coffee. Another full round of trading.
Y:Settler+/corn. Yitzchak wanted to take another quarry, but Rachel and I convinced him that this was the reason he had been losing his last few games so badly. One quarry is more than enough, and he needed more shipping goods, especially with a Harbor (same would apply to Factory). I won the building point game, and I didn't have a single quarry (instead, I had coffee monopoly and Factory).

-7-
R:Builder/Tobacco. I built Factory. Yitzchak could not be dissuaded from building Hospice, which didn't help him during the game. Adam built Large Sugar.
J:Mayor+. I was very wary of doing this, because it filled in Yitzchak and Rachel's Harbors, and they already had goods to ship.
Y:Prospector+
A:Craftsman+

-8-
J:Captain++
Y:Trader+. This time Adam doesn't have an indigo to trade, so one space is left in the Trading House.
A:Settler+
R:Mayor

-9-
Y:Builder+/Guild Hall. He ends up with a full Guild Hall by game's end. Stupid building. Adam and I both build Small Market. After building, I still have 10 doubloons on my board.
A:Craftsman+
R:Captain. Rachel and I begin blocking boats with our trade goods.
J:Prospector+. I'm now looking at buying two big buildings, as I was flush with cash.

-10-
A:Mayor+
R:Settler+, Yitzchak takes a sugar plantation. Rachel has had a sugar monopoly until now.
J:Trader+. I fill in the Trading House with an indigo.
Y:Builder/Small Sugar. I build City Hall.

-11-
R:Prospector+
J:Craftsman+. The 5 boat had 2 coffees in it, and Adam was going to be producing coffee soon. I produced 2 coffees, but elected to not take an additional coffee as my bonus good, even though anything else I would produce wouldn't ship. I preferred leaving the boat still partially full. I took an extra corn, beginning a long buildup of corn on my Small Warehouse.
Y:Captain+. Yitzchak always prefers to Captain when he is afraid he will be locked out, otherwise.
A:Mayor. Nobody has any monopolies anymore.

-12-
J:Builder+/Custom's House. Not as much for the points it will give me, but for denying it to Yitzchak or Rachel. Turns out to give be a fair bit, after all. No one else builds.
Y:Settler+
A:Craftsman
R:Trader+. I debated not trading my coffee. Adam and Rachel were pretty much sure to get the other two big buildings before I could, anyway. I had two coffee barrels, and I could only ship one. But the other one could be left over to start another coffee ship. I decided that I would be crafting again by then, anyway. Also, I had my eye on a Wharf already at that point, as I was accumulating corn.


-13-
Y:Captain+
A:Builder/Residence. Rachel builds Fortress. I'm one shy for Wharf. I build Construction Hut.
R:Mayor+. All big buildings are manned.
J:Craftsman. I now have 7 corn. I'm totally aware that I won't get to ship them on the next Captain phase, as Adam or Rachel or both will block me. But all three ships are going to empty, and the game isn't yet going to be over, leaving me clear sailing to ship them all on the next Captain phase. My next concerns then were whether to worry about Wharf and manning it, or simply go for sending them on the regular boats. Sending on the regular boats helps cut off Harbor shippers.

-14-
A:Captain. I keep my 7 corn.
R:Mayor
J:Builder/Wharf. For my City Hall, and just in case I can do it again.
Y:Prospector++

-15-
R:Craftsman+. Rachel has since regretted this move, as others cut off boats before she could ship and the game ended due to victory point depletion.
J:Captain. I chose to ship 7 corns on a boat and block it, rather than Mayor and Wharf. This nearly doubles my victory point total for the game. Game end triggered. Adam hands me the game now by shipping his three coffees, allowing me to do the same, instead of shipping one sugar or indigo, which would have given Rachel three more victory points instead. It's true that this is a slight flaw in the game.
Y:Builder. Yitzchak fills in his last production building. I build Hacienda.
A:Prospector. Adam is already ahead in any tie situation.

-Scores-
Y: 26ship + 21build + 10bonus = 57
A: 19ship + 17build + 4bonus = 40
R: 35ship + 15build + 6bonus = 56
J: 26ship + 21build + 13bonus = 60

Session report 2007-06-27

Participants: Ben, Yitzhak, Nadine, Adam

At Nadine's house again. Relatively few participants, apparently because of the hot weather, although Nadine was nice enough to put on the air-conditioning.


San Juan

Ben 31, Yitzhak 20, Nadine 20

This game is very similar to Chutes and Ladders. Apparently Ben had the advantage of hitting a lot of ladders, which let him move up very quickly, leaving everyone else behind. Yitz and Nadine ended up tied despite getting very different die rolls. Yitz got hit with a number of chutes which slowed his progress, whereas Nadine didn't roll well, but got a few ladders which kept her not too far behind.

Power Grid

Ben 18/18, Yitzhak 16/16, Nadine 15/18, Adam 12/17

I am starting to get the impression that this game turns out to be very similar to Chutes and Ladders. I was in a fairly good position throughout most of the game, but just as we were getting to the I hit a long chute and went way back. Nadine was also a bit further behind for most of the game. So in the end it turned out to be some luck as to who between Ben and Yitz won.

May 30, 2007

Participants: Jon, David, Nadine, Elijah, Zack, Jack, Binyamin, Gili, Adam, Tal

Game night was interrupted for a half hour by a visit from Kindershpiel's representative, delivering a few boxes of different versions of Apples to Apples to me, to assist me in my work in creating Hebrew versions of the game.

Jack came about half a year ago, so this was his second visit. He knows some games already, so was prepared to enter into anything we could throw at him.

For Sale

Zack 85, Tal 84, Elijah

These three began with a light game, while the rest of us started something a little heavier.

Power Grid

David 16, Binyamin 14, Nadine 13, Jack 12+, Jon 12-

I suggested Princes of Florence, but somehow this ended up on the table, yet again. The only problem I have with it is that a) Nadine and David tend to take a long time to think through their moves (and end up playing better because of it), and b) too much cooperation going on, with everyone figuring out the best moves for everyone else.

As a result of a), Binyamin and I played a side game of Netrunner while this game was going on, whenever it dragged down. Amazingly enough, aside from a few points at the beginning of the game, it didn't drag down too much, even though it certainly took a long time to play (around 3 hours, not including a small break we took in the middle).

Note that we also played with a special rule change: A third row of power plants was added atop of the other two. This row merely revealed the next 4 plants coming up in the deck (no reordering or taking the highest or lowest from this row, surely a stack). As a result, the main other complaint we had about the game, which was the luck of a good power plant coming out, or a bad one coming out, after you made the best play, was entirely eliminated from the game. In my opinion, the change was an excellent one, and I intend to play with it from now on.

In our game, we played on the U.S. map with the Southwest blocked off. I had never tried starting on the expensive Northwest but decided to give it a go. It is, without question, the reason that I lost. I was expecting fighting in the East coast to offset the slightly higher prices I was paying on the West, but there wasn't any real fighting on the East. As a result, I was simply paying more and getting less each round, and that was all there was to it. In the end, I had a line of plants stretching from coast to coast, but this was not a pick up and deliver game.

David and Binyamin took the East coast, with Jack and Nadine in the center. Jack ended up going all green, while I had some early nukes. Coal and oil were therefore incredibly low priced for the entire game, as was most of the fuel.

Children of Fire: the Board Game

Zack 11, Gili 9, Elijah 6, Adam 5

Adam taught them all this game (reminded Elijah, actually), but somehow lost anyway. They finished it in reasonable time, so I guess didn't need the round limit that I generally impose on the game.

Netrunner

Binyamin+, Jon

This is a game whose main luck component is hidden cards and picking from them blindly. What this means, is that the shorter the game, the more luck and therefore the less interesting.

Our game, in contrast, was a long slow buildup, which made the game lots and lots of fun, very interesting and pleasurable. I still wish the game had a few more "Instant" like cards and direct targeting cards; I may need to buy a few more packs of cards.

I played the Corp and Binyamin the Runner. He played no hardware the entire game. However, he had a card that let him take the top card of his discard pile and a card that let him look through his deck and choose any card, As a result, he spent two actions almost every round simply picking any card he wanted from the deck.

I had a good deal of ICE out, but ultimately he found a way to my HQ through my Archives and pulled the last Agenda out of my hand.

San Juan

David, Nadine, Jack

While Kindershpiel was talking to me (and Binyamin), these guys played some San Juan, abandoning it mid-game when we resumed Power Grid.

Tichu

Adam/Tal 1000+, Elijah/Zack 500

While we wrapped up Power Grid, these guys played an entire game of Tichu to 1000 points. At least once, a nine card straight from Adam was beat by a higher nine card straight from Zack.

Quite an interesting game, though playing to 1000 takes quite a long time, relatively. There were many tichus and grand tichus called and made and lost. On the first turn, Tal made a fairly silly pass to the opponents. But after that she played well. --Adam

Lo Ra

Nadine 37, Jack 35, David 27

Jack is an experienced Ra player, so it didn't take him long to adjust to Nadine's Jewish themed version of the game. He had quite a collection of monuments, so I'm surprised to see that he didn't win in the end. It's mainly due to his first round score of -5 to Nadine's 9.

May 09, 2007

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Gili, Tal, Annette, Eliezer

Hmm. I must have scared away all the regular game group participants; the only regulars to attend were Nadine and Gili. Where did everyone go?

Annette and Eliezer came back for another visit, although it's a long trip for them.

Hearts

Jon/Tal, Annette/Eliezer

I introduced them to Team Hearts for a quick light opener. I had to refresh Annette on the rules of Hearts, and it appears that she wasn't too thrilled with the game. She asked if we could play President.

Tichu

Jon/Tal, Annette/Eliezer

So I tried them on Tichu for one hand. Annette appeared to like it more, but she will need more than one hand to really get into it. In our game, Eliezer went out first, Tal last, and they ended up with all 100 points.

Puerto Rico

Jon 54, Nadine 53, Annette 44

At this point we did our usual dance of what to play. Annette wanted to play Puerto Rico, while Eliezer didn't. I assumed that more people would be coming, so I decided to play Puerto Rico at the same time that I played something with Eliezer. Little did I know what trouble I was getting into.

After Tal went off, and Gili arrived, we were five for the evening, yet, instead of playing a five player game, we ended up playing two three-player games, where I played in both games throughout the evening. How do I keep ending up in this position?

In Puerto Rico, we played with the straight building set. I was first. Both Nadine and I did a fairly straightforward four goods/Factory strategy. Nadine got a fifth good going while I took Harbor, passing up Guild Hall. In the end, she had three large buildings to my two, while I edged her out in shipping points.

Annette had nice goods production going and two quarries (to my none), but none of them were trade goods. So she remained cash shy.

Yinsh

Jon+, Eliezer

I introduced this to Eliezer and played simultaneous with Puerto Rico. As a result, I had to split concentration between these two games.

Our game was very crowded in the center. I won solely based on the fact that I understood the patterns of the game better than he did on his first play. Typical moves I used included my having a ring with two of his pieces extending one way and two of mine the opposite way. Jumping his pieces gave me five in a row.

Caylus

Jon+, Gili, Eliezer

I let Gili pick the next game as she arrived in the middle of the Yinsh game, and this is what she chose. Oh well. Not my favorite, but I'm willing.

It's hard to describe a Caylus game. Suffice to say that I managed two large buildings including the 25 pointer, as well as a lot of castle points and favors therefrom. Gili also got two buildings, and more building points, but less castle points. In the end, she made a small mistake in building in the castle. Even without it, she probably wouldn't have won, but it would have been closer.

Eliezer didn't quite get the green-blue building dynamic. He spent the last part of the game getting straight victory points and gold cubes. Actually, now that I think about it, he was about 20 points behind Gili, but he had a fist full of cubes and cash that we didn't bother to count at the end. It's likely that he was closer to Gili's score than we realized.

The Menorah Game

Nadine+, Jon+, Annette

We played two games, Nadine winning the first and me the second. In the second game Annette was very close to winning but got hit with a soldier and we managed to fill in our tiles before she could build up again. These were her first plays.

Nadine still doesn't like the soldier mechanic in the game and would prefer to play with out them.

We managed to hit a situation that I had never hit before not covered in the rules. The last two cards were both soldiers. After the first was dealt with, the second is put aside and another tile is supposed to be drawn, after which the soldier set aside is returned to the deck. This makes the first time that a soldier was mixed into the deck on the second time through the deck.

Even after a few hundred plays, things like this happen.

San Juan

Nadine, Annette

Nadine taught Annette how to play this but they only played a few rounds before they had to go. Annette appeared to like it.

April 25, 2007

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

This week we had to say goodbye to Josh and Idit, on their way to Boston for the next few years. Boston game players, do find them a home. Thanks.

David brought back Apples to Apples Jewish edition, which he said worked as well as the regular edition, and he would choose if he had to choose between them.

Vulkan

Jon, Zack, Elijah, Nadine

Vulkan is a game played using the components from Feurio, a game that I really didn't like. In fact, my review was so negative, that the author of the game, Heinrich Glumpler, wrote to me and asked me to try this game instead. All you need is Feurio and the rules to Vulkan, the latter of which is available as a free download.

In Vulkan, all the tiles are laid out in any sort of shape (a Settlers of Catan configuration seems about right, but you can just start playing at the end of a game of Feurio). One tile is turned over to be the volcano.

On your turn, you "fly" over the fire, dropping water. In other words, you place yuor pieces on all tiles in a straight line. You can't fly over the volcano.

Any hexes that are now filled are scored. The person with the majority in the hex scores the hex; in the case of a tie, the current player scores it, even if he or she is not involve in the tie.

These hexes are removed from the board. If this creates any isolated ares no longer connected to the volcano, these hexes are also scored, and empty ones collected by the current player.

If you run out of pieces, you can no longer take a turn. The game ends when all players have run out of pieces.

The biggest change in this game from Feurio is that there is no luck. This makes the game a simple abstract puzzle, which takes no more than 5 to 10 minutes to play. The decisions are clear and meaningful. It was fun - or at least would have been if I wasn't still reading the rules while we were playing. In any case, it is light-years better than Feurio.

You simply analyze the board, make your move, and hope your LHO doesn't give his LHO the game, like in so many other turn based abstract games. I doubt the game will survive dozens of replays with the same opponent, but it is a nice filler for a few games, at least.

Zack won, but most of our turns were helping each other with the moves.

Caylus

Nadine 91, David 90, Zack 65

David still suggests this game whenever he comes. Zack also still likes it, but this time Nadine appeared to get bored of it. She complained that the game was too balanced; i.e. no matter what you did to get ahead, the players in back would regain again.

For myself, I have a problem with games where there are so many paths to victory that it simply doesn't matter which one you choose, since everyone will end at around the same number of points anyway (*cough* Goa *cough*). I think this is what she was getting at.

I heard the usual mutters of complaining about past mistakes. Zack ended the game before David was ready for it, apparently, by building six castle spaces in a single round, which filled it up. 

[Actually, what caught me unprepared is that he used 3 gold cubies in order to build the sixth 
space in the castle. I had also made sure that I would go first on the next round... - David]

Die Macher

Jon, Binyamin, Gili, Adam

Us veteran members of the Die Macher club were convinced that given a four hour game night that we could finish a game of this. We had learned the rules on Games Day.

Unfortunately it wasn't to be, as we only made it through three rounds, yet again. This time, however, Gili and I painstakingly wrote down every single state of the game, so that next time we bring it out we can start from round four.

By the third round, Binyamin was getting bored with the game, saying that the grand complexity gave one the illusion of more control than you actually have. Sounds like politics to me.

Our provinces have been pretty low scoring ones. Gili had a large lead in the national polls for a while, but Binyamin just refused a campaign contribution and went up twelve points. I've co-won two out of three elections so far. I have no hope in the next one, but a strong chance for the fifth. Binyamin also has two co-wins so far, and Gili and Adam each have one. Adam has been having financial problems owing to his poor election placements so far.

Carcassonne

Josh 65, Idit 65, Elijah 54

Ben left his copy of this lying around, so when Josh and Idit showed up and we were all in the middle of other games, they played this. This is the original version with the River supplement (whose rules I don't really know).

It looks to me like it was a low scoring game.

San Juan

Elijah 38, Idit 36, Josh 29

And they continued with this game, while Caylus and Die Macher were still going on.

Tichu

David/Jon-Elijah 1005, Zack/Nadine 295

I started playing opposite David while simultaneously playing Die Macher, and then Elijah took over for me after San Juan ended.

David and I started off with a cool 300 points, and Elijah and David took another 300 point hand two rounds later. In the first hand, David called Tichu when I was going to.

I had an interesting situation where I had remaining in my hand four aces, two fives, and a four. The only guaranteed way to win was to break my bomb into a full house, a single ace, and then play my four as my last card. So it pays to break up bombs, occasionally.

Elijah also had a situation where he had a two, two fours, two fives, and a straight from six to ace. He was going to play a straight from four to ace until I, looking over his shoulder, told him that that was a losing play; instead he played his six through ace, then his two pairs of fours and fives, and then exited with his two.

Nadine is convinced that there is very little actual strategy to the game compared to the luck factor.

Mau

Adam, Zack, Elijah

Mau is a game that I loathe, but Adam likes it. Zack and Elijah had never heard of it, and we had to convince them that they would love it in order to get them to play, From the sounds of hysterical laughter on their part for a good 45 minutes, we knew we had done well. They loved it, especially Zack.

If you want to know what Mau is, you're encouraged not to look it up, as part of the "fun" (read: childishness) is not knowing the rules before you start playing. But you can look them up on Wikipedia, if you so desire.

Bridge

Binyamin/David 1260, Jon/Nadine 280

We managed to play four hands. My opponents bid and made a 6NT contract on the first hand.

April 18, 2007

Participants: Jon, Nadine, David K, Ben, Adam, Elijah, Zack

I received an evaluation copy of Apples to Apples Jewish Edition, and we spent some time looking at the cards. More on that on my blog.

Cosmic Encounter

Ben+, Jon, Elijah

Elijah always wants to play Cosmic, and I haven't had the chance to play in a while. Most of the others are bored (?) of it, or something. But Ben still likes to play, so we made a threesome.

As usual, it was a game of sheer lunacy. Ben had Antimatter and Loser; the winner was the loser who was the winner who was ... something. I had two great powers, Judge and Witch, the former of which is a tad overpowered. And Elijah had Pacifist and Filth.

With the Filth in the game, it was hard for Ben or me to get foreign bases in Elijah's system. I was Judging my way to extra bases and having fun with my curses, which were not all that effectual. Ben decided to take me out.

A number of conflicts were decided by just a point or two.

The game was in a situation where Ben and I had three foreign bases and Elijah had two. Elijah had an empty home planet and a base in each of our systems. I won an attack against Ben, which would have given me my fourth base, but decided to play Emotion Control, generously offering Ben a base so that he would join me in an attack against Elijah, or invite me for the same, if we could flip Elijah's system.

Instead, I flipped hum again, and he was able to win the game on his turn by convincing Elijah to abandon his base in my system. I'm still not sure how all of that happened, but that's the way CE breaks.

Power Grid

Nadine (14), David (13), Adam (11+), Zack (11-)

David loves this game and convinced the others to play either this or Caylus. This despite the acknowledgment by all [except Adam --Adam] that there is too much luck in the power plant supply. They propose that from now on, the next four plants that will flip up are kept face up in a third row, in order to reduce this luck factor.

They played on the expensive part of the U.S. map. David was faced with a situation of either ending the game one round and achieving second place, thus allowing Nadine to win, or extending the game one round and achieving last place, thus allowing Zack [you mean Adam. Zack was broke. --Adam] to win. He chose the former.

Zack was wholly bored by the game by the end of it. Adam enjoyed it, however.

I think the luck factor is overstated. For example, on the third round, both Zack and I got some fairly nice power plants, which put us as the favorites at that time. Then everyone started complaining about luck. In fact, I had been planning to be in that position from the beginning of the game. Of course. there was still some luck as to exactly what came down, but I think everyone was overstating it.

Zack a couple of times paid very large amounts for cities (once for example paying a connection fee across the board in order to force round two). He also bought a few too many power plants in my opinion. Otherwise, he would have been the leader easily. -- Adam

San Juan

Ben 39, Jon 28, Elijah 27
Ben got out an early Library, which made the game impossible for me, basically. Combine that with a slew of production buildings and a Guild Hall, and there you go. I did my valiant best with a City Hall and lots of minor buildings. Elijah did poorly, but also gained a Library mid-game, so was able to almost catch up to me.

Tichu

Adam/Jon 735, Zack/Elijah 665

I played this simultaneously while I played Bridge, and only suffered once because of it. It's really a very nice game, although it's missing the depth of Bridge. We won by Adam calling and making a Grand Tichu on the last hand.

I called Tichu a couple of times (too many), and missed a few of them, otherwise we wouldn't have been in the situation where we need to make the Grand Tichu on the last round. There's a strategy as to when to call Tichu, which I'm starting to figure out. -- Adam

Bridge

Jon 1520, David 1120, Nadine 930, Ben 530

I played this simultaneously while I played Tichu, and suffered several times because of it. Bridge really needs more of my attention.

Both I and Nadine made errors that cost us contracts, while David made an error that gave us a contract. Ben didn't make any major errors, but managed to lose for all that.

I found the card part of the evening much more enjoyable than the board game part of the evening, and would be happy to have several evenings only playing cards for a while.

March 14, 2007

Participants: Jon, David K, Nadine, Ben, Binyamin, Adam, Elijah, Zack

Binyamin returns after being absent for a few weeks.

San Juan

Jon 47, David 38

I picked up David on the way home from work so we had a few extra minutes to play before the others arrived. David asked to play this.

I started with Builder/Tobacco, while David played Prefecture. While Prefecture is a great building, he made the mistake that most Prefecture players make which is taking Counselor at every opportunity, leaving me Builder or Prospector every round.

Despite his counseling, I still managed to get a Library out a few rounds before he did. By mid-game, I was essentially up a building. He also dropped a bunch of utility buildings mid-to-end game on his City Hall, while I was dropping Silvers on my Guild Hall. My Palace sealed it.

Cosmic Encounter

Ben+ (Obverse, Industrialist, Pacifist), Binyamin (Berserker, Virus, Zombie), Elijah (Symbiote, Sniveler, Worm), Adam (Amoeba, Vampire, Clone)

If I say that a lot of weirdness happened in this game, it won't surprise you, because it's Cosmic, after all.

The first problem was the large amount of time they spent deciding how the play would work, lobbying for and against Lucre, comets, moons, etc. In the end, Ben won this battle. To balance this, they ended up each playing three powers each, where two powers were active at any one time, and the third rotated in if you won a challenge.

Unfortunately for Ben, his "out" power was Pacifist, his in powers were Industrialist and Obverse, and his hand consisted of three Compromises, a 0, and a 6. Despite this, he managed to win the game. Apparently, he used Wild Trader to gain his fifth base, and then, as he was under attack, he used Wild Antimatter to essentially end the challenge.

But the weirdest part of the evening was reserved for Elijah and his Symbiote. The Symbiote is the power that gives you twenty additional pieces, which count for all purposes, but not for establishing foreign bases for the win.

The first problem was when Elijah played the Wild Schizoid. I ruled that the hexes change, but the Symbiote pieces still remain Elijahs where they now reside. This immediately gave him five foreign bases, although none of them counted towards the win. I considered a number of other possible rulings, but none of them seemed to work.

This resulted in all other players immediately ganging up on Elijah, so that he couldn't get the opportunity he needed to simply rearrange his pieces onto those foreign bases and immediately win.

The next problem was when Elijah lost his power and Binyamin played Wild Crystal, which lets him rearrange all tokens in a system. The problem is that the Symbiote power is written poorly. It says that the tokens may not be moved if you lose your power. This would seem to imply that even if others try to move or destroy the tokens or the planet, these tokens cannot be sent to the warp. I found this to be ridiculous, and I ruled that they cannot be moved "by you".

Power Grid

David 18, Jon 17, Nadine 16, Zack 15

We played on northern Germany.

In this game, we were truly at the mercy of the luck of the power plant flips, which made me wonder that there couldn't be a better power plant system. The only other alternative I can think of simply makes you vulnerable to the decision of whatever the guy before you does, which is no better.

This kind of swings the game too much, in my opinion.

The remainder of the game is still enjoyable, if you like this sort of thing. In the last few games that these guys played, the fuel was constantly running out. Therefore, they were in the habit of always buying as much as they can, which, of course, meant that the fuel kept running out.

On my first turn, I got the hybrid plant, and I bought only a single piece of fuel. I figured, both oil and coal weren't going to run out so quickly, so I'll just buy whatever is cheapest next time.

Owing to my decision, and my gentle persuasion, I convinced most of the other players to do the same. As a result, fuel prices all stayed very low the whole game, with coal and oil in the 1's for much of the game.

David found himself cornered at the beginning of the game. It looked near the end that I was going to win it, but with some collective help, we found the cities that David needed to build to eke out the victory in the last round.

Tichu

Adam/Elijah 495, David/Zack 205

They played 6 hands. They were neck and neck until the last hand, when Adam pulled off a Tichu and then Elijah went out, giving them a 300 point boost.

Bridge

Ben 1990, Jon 1810, Nadine 1610, Binyamin 850

We played with the following rules:

- 12 hands, switch partners after 4 hands.
- Each 4 hand round is No Vul, Dealer Vul, Dealer Vul, All Vul.
- Scoring is duplicate standard, assigned to each player in the pair.

My first partnership was with Nadine. We made a partial and set Ben 2 tricks in a slam they shouldn't have been in.

I then played with Binyamin. We made a game, but I went down in a game that I could have made with a whole lot of luck and cross-ruffing. Instead I tried a finesse which didn't work, combined with a 3-1 trump split.

In the last set, I played with Ben. At this point Ben was behind Nadine and needed a good 300 points or so to beat her. Neither Binyamin nor I could win, but that's not what Bridge is about, anyway.

Unfortunately for Ben, Binyamin began by making 4+1 in clubs, and then setting us 2 tricks in a some game. Ben was now down 600 or so points.

I bid and made a game. It was one of those hands where I had exactly matching distribution and I was missing three aces, and there was nothing to be done one way or another. Makes 4 all day.

This put us still back 200 points, which meant that we still needed a game (or to take them down many tricks) to win. With one hand remaining, Ben decided to go for broke bidding 3 NT when I had 6 clubs and 4 diamonds, and neither of us had bid the majors.

They had 5 tricks off the top if they would have played them, but it was hard for them to see it. Instead, Binyamin led a diamond into my ace-king. Ben had exactly 8 tricks, managed to steal a ninth, and simply gave them the rest. That moved me into second place.

Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation

Elijah++, Zack

Elijah won two games, first playing White and then Black.

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.

January 10, 2007

Participants: Jon, Ben, David K, Shevi, Nadine, Gili, Adam, Zack, Binyamin, Eyal

Eyal returned for his second visit. With Zack barely speaking Hebrew, and Eyal speaking English, but much more comfortable in Hebrew, games are our meeting point.

And with only ten people, it's amazing how many games can hit the table
on a single game evening.

Feurio

Binyamin, Jon, Nadine

Binyamin came to me and asked me to see if I could find anything resembling tactics or strategy is this game that seems to get a lot of high praise on BGG. Knowing only that he doesn't see any, I gamely sat down and gave it a looksee.

The game consists of hexes numbered 1 through 6. Each turn, you flip over a tile and must place it at any location that has the highest numbered surrounding hexes. So where you can place the tiles is very limited, and sometimes give no choice at all.

Then you choose to put some of your meeples onto any one piece on the board that still has available space. Since you have a limited (but not very) number of meeples, you have to decided where to put them. Also, you may only put onto a hex the maximum of a) 2/2 the number on the hex, rounded up, or b) the number of free edges the hex has remaining. If a hex becomes surrounded, it does not lose the meeples it has already acquired.

That's it. At the end of the game, you score the numbers on the tiles under each of your herds divided by the number of the lowest tile that is not entirely surrounded by other hexes.

While this all sounds good on paper, I was forced to agree less than five turns into the game that Binyamin is entirely correct. While not entirely free of any tactics altogether (although entirely free of strategy), the barest amount that you have under your control is so pitiful, and your moves so forced, and the results so luck-dependent, that I literally stopped caring by the last third of the game, and couldn't even be bothered to count, let alone record, the scores.

It's just dull, and what decisions there are are effectively meaningless. The possibility that one could actually block your opponent, as opposed to simply taking the maximum score on each play, is a non-starter, and if it occurs was also beyond your control.

The only thing nice I have to say about the game is as follows: it's quick and easy to learn. The mechanic of how the hexes spread is a neat mechanic and fits the theme (fire spreading), but entirely doesn't work in this game.

San Juan

David, Shevi

Shevi has decided opinions about games. These two came and tried to get in a filler game, but abandoned it after a few rounds, because two others had also shown up, and because Shevi didn't like the game.

Santiago

Zack 94, David 91, Eyal 79, Shevi 70

Instead they played this excellent game. The rules are almost as simple as Fuerio, but boy is there a difference in game play!

Wildlife

Nadine 100, Gili 89, Adam 87, Binaymin 73

I sat down to start this game again, eager for another play, and this time with the correct rules (about herds). Halfway through the explanation Adam appeared, so we included him. After the explanation, Ben appeared, and I refused to turn it into a six player game, so I abandoned it to play with Ben.

In general, people liked the game, except Binyamin. This wasn't helped by the fact that Nadine had a mammoth herd on the board and was on her way to winning near the end of the game when Adam and Gili decided to spend upwards of 45 minutes taking a single turn in an attempt to find a way to break it up.

This resulted in Nadine getting rather bored, and Binyamin getting rather frustrated, and I can't say that I blame them. All in all, this extended the game to around 4 hours. For 4 players. Ouch.

Caylus

Jon/David+, Ben

So I sat down to play 2-player Caylus with Ben who had only played it once before and 3-player at that. We got going, and then David popped over from finishing his Santiago game, sad that he had wanted to play it. Since I wasn't really into it anyway, I got up, yet again, and let David take over for me.

This was David's first play with 2-players.

Princes of Florence

Zack 60, Jon 59, Shevi 52, Eyal 43

Instead, I got to teach three first-time player the joys of PoF. Luckily, Eyal could understand enough of my English to play the game. Shevi was initially fearful, but began to get into it. Zack and Eyal liked it already by the end of the first round.

The only real strategy tips I give is the approximate values for the auction items in the first few rounds, especially warning about the Jesters and Recruiters (the latter less so in a 4-player game). Zack took the first two Jesters for 1200 and 1300, while I took the next three or so for more reasonable prices.

Shevi took Builder in the first two turns for 900 and 1000, which I thought was rather excessive. Other than that, most other items went for fairly cheap, and several times several players took items for the minimum price of 200.

I had no real luck with my cards, but still played a fairly solid game, which seemed to be pretty good. Zack's win in the end was simply for having the 3 point bonus for best work as well as buying a Prestige card on the last turn for a full 8 points.

Settlers of Catan

Eyal 10, Zack 8, Jon 5

Shevi left, and I wanted a filler game for three. Since Eyal and Zack had played Settlers even prior to joining my club, this was one of the few games that we could get into and play through quickly. I started on reasonable places, including the only worthwhile brick hex, the 8, where the others were on 2 and 3.

The other players had more city starts, with high ore and wheat. That wouldn't have bothered me, as I shared their wheat and ore hexes as well. But wouldn't you know? 8 never rolled up except when the robber was on it - and I mean not once the entire game - whereas 3 rolled up at least half a dozen times in the first twenty rounds or so. Eyal even traded 4 bricks for something at one point.

I sulkily decided that my goal was simply to get to five points before the game ended, which I actually managed to do, with one round to spare.

Tichu

Adam/Jon 65, Nadine/Zack 35

There was discussion over whether to play Bridge or Tichu, and our population had difficulty figuring out how to do this.

We played one hand of Tichu here with no Tichu being called. While this game was going on, I simultaneously played Lost Cities with Binyamin.

David/Jon 50, Adam/Zack 150

And then I simultaneously played Tichu while playing Bridge. We played two hands here, and even though David and I "won" the last hand, we netted 0 points from the tricks.

Lost Cities

Jon 100 something, Binyamin 30 something

Known on BGG as the best two-player game or as the best game to play with your non-gaming spouse, I have to completely disagree with the former while reserving some judgment on the latter. As a gamer, this game is simply brainless. Oh, it's much better than Feurio, as the decisions you make are actually meaningful and the game includes both tactics and strategies. But they are not that deep, and can easily be absorbed by the end of the first game.

As a result, I was easily able to play this simultaneously with Tichu, win to boot, and not particularly care anyway.

Bridge

Ben/Beinyamin 400, Jon/Nadine 0

Ben and Bin made two games while Nadine and I went down in one. Bridge is still The card game, and Tichu is Bridge-lite - very lite. As light as can be an simple be a complex and interesting game. Well, maybe Team Hearts is even lighter, but no lighter than that.