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.

February 23, 2011

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Mace, Gili, Tal

Quiet game night.

Nile

Mace 1/2/2/x, Gili 1/1/2/x, Nadine, Jon

Mace selected this again, determined to win at least once. The last time I played, I thought that the game might grow on me some more if I played it more. Nope.

On the contrary. I have now fully formed my opinion that the game is unenjoyable. The main mechanic is to hope that a field that you have planted will flip up before it is ruined by someone else or by a plague. The second is to hope that you draw cards that don't duplicate what you've already scored or what is flipped up, and that exceed what others have in play. All of this hoping is not only boring, it is also skewed. The game is too short (even when played several times through the deck) and the times your field is picked too infrequent, unless you're amazingly lucky.

It's slightly better with two players.

Genoa

Mace 705, Jon 625, Gili 565, Nadine 505

First play for Mace, second for Nadine. I played the version called Traders of Genoa a few times. Back when I did, I thought the game was grossly long, and we had shortened the game by two turns ... and had still been too long. I suggested that for this game we also shorten the game by two turns. Gili suggested a compromise of shortening the game by one turn.

In what is probably a first for our game group, we actually sailed through the first rounds at a relatively good speed. After three rounds, I suggested that we re-add the turn that we had removed, and so we did. The game took us only a little over 2.5 hours.

I concentrated on two early Large deliveries, which I thought did me some good; they did. But it prevented my concentrating at all on the end game scroll collecting. Mace meanwhile started collecting these, and while he didn't have much cash in hand, he ended with a fist full of them.

When calculating whether or not to trade these cards to him, I valued them at only up to 50 (for him, but only 10 for me). Turns out that I had undervalued them; when he was able to join two groups of three into a group of seven, he ended up with far more than a 50 point gain.

Nadine is not much of a negotiator: she often wants to ignore that part of the game, or she sticks steadfastly to a negotiating position which is not all based on actual value. Still, she played gamely and I think enjoyed herself. Gili was the one who brought the game, and she had played some (rather long) games with her friends already.

Tichu

Mace/Nadine 1000+, Jon/Tal ---

Tal joined me for a game of Tichu; we had to remind Mace how the game was played, and how the special cards worked. Mace bid and made a Grand Tichu on the second hand (though Tal missed a chance to prevent him from making it). I bid Tichu only once, and lost. I also misplayed a different hand. The result was rather pathetic.

October 06, 2010

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Mace, Gili, Elijah

Still a small group. Many regulars have moved away.

Dominion/Intrigue/Seaside

Nadine 28, Mace 28, Jon 22, Gili 1

Kingdoms: Chapel, Workshop, Throne Room, Market, Ironworks, Lighthouse, Warehouse, Navigator, Sea Hag, Wharf

I started with an early Chapel, but it never managed to dump more than one copper and one Estate. As a result, the rest of my game felt a lack of synergy, and I watched Mace and Nadine begin drawing Provinces well before I could. Lighthouse seemed to be a good card here, but Mace made Ironworks and Navigator sing.

Gili's score was her initial three Estates and two curses.

Elijah 28, Jon 22, Mace 21, Nadine 15

I insisted on playing the same kingdoms again, since I was sure that a better start with Chapel would give me better results. And it did, indeed, start better, with me getting to 6 or 7 fairly quickly and buying golds. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of thinking that just because Lighthouse worked well in the last game meant that it would work well in this game, too. It didn't.

Nadine took Sea Hags this time to annoy other people, but I dumped them all. I'm not really sure how Elijah won.

Phoenicia

Gili 34, Elijah 31, Jon 27, Mace 26, Nadine 25.

First plays for Mace and Elijah, but Gili, Nadine, and I had to relearn the rules, anyway.

I started off convinced that someone behind was going to stay behind throughout the game. However, Gili started off behind and went on to win. I started off in the middle and then fell behind for most of the game, but I somehow made it back to the middle on the last round. So I may be wrong.

We're still playing with the introductory rules, which include each player starting with a 5 money card and each player only able to collect 1 "building" per turn. We'll have to try without the latter rule in the future.

At the present, I think the game is quite balanced with many different options. It seems like you have to get workers and advanced industry to thrive, but you don't really. So I don't know how to win, yet.

Tichu

Jon/Mace 330, Elijah/Nadine 70

First play for Mace. We played two hands, and I called and made two Tichus.

September 15, 2010

Participants: Jon, Debbie, Nadine, David K, Gili

We skipped last week, the holidays wreak havoc on the game night schedule. Debbie is a friend of Rachel's who decided to join us for game night. Hopefully, she'll come again.

Dominion

Jon 43, Nadine 42, Debbie 34

First play for Debbie. Brave soul. She did pretty well, too. We decided to stick to the basic set to make things easier on her (this decision was reached from experience).

Kingdoms: Moat, Village, Woodcutter, Feast, Militia, Smithy, Festival, Laboratory, Mine, Adventurer

As we said a few times during the game, many good choices. I took an early Village and Militia, but then took a few golds, which make the Village underused for a while. Should I have taken Festivals instead? I eventually took some, a Moat and some Smithies.

Nadine took Feasts, Festivals, and a Laboratory. She started with silver instead of Village. Debbie also took an early Militia and a Woodcutter. No one took Mine, though it would have been nice to get rid of all of those coppers.

In the end, I won by taking an Estate before Nadine ended the game. I had two earlier Provinces, and she thought for sure that I was winning, but I knew it was closer than she thought.

Tichu

Jon/Nadine 555, David/Debbie 45

First play for Debbie. She wasn't sure how to help her partner, but she was able to play well enough after three hands.

I opened with an made a Grand Tichu, with my partner going out second to boot. Second hand, I set David in a Tichu (I was really going to call it myself) with a net result of +5 for us and -5 for them. Third hand I made another Tichu.

Jon/Nadine+, David/Gili

Later in the evening we returned to this. I don't remember the final scores, but I set David in yet another Tichu. My hands were pretty good all evening.

Pillars of the Earth

Jon 47, Nadine, Gili, David 40

Scores approximate, but I know that I beat David, the last placed player by 7 points, since if he had bought the craftsman that I told him to buy on the last round, he would have netted 8 more points and won the game. David was flush at 30 cash the entire game. I hovered around 10 to 15 as usual, but sank to 0 on the penultimate round. I was a few points ahead on the score track the entire game, however.

Which was weird, because a) I had my usual abysmal luck with the master craftsman, as usual, and so missed nearly every important selection on the board most rounds, and b) the most I was ever able to convert was 1 to 1, although I could do it by round 2 and could do it for every type of resource.

I have to admit that I finally got fed up with the master craftsman mechanic this game. It's just too brutal to lose by it (or win by it) so often for so many games. A mechanic that evens out over the course of a single game is one thing; one that only evens out over the course of many games is useless unless it's a game designed to be played many times in succession (such as Poker).

I like everything else about the game. I'm thinking of replacing the master craftsman mechanic with something like the initiative track from Year of the Dragon or with some kind of auction.

Nadine adds: Gili was ahead of me by one point so she was second, though she seemed better positioned the whole time. I agree with you about the mechanic.


No game night next week again, and the week after is Games Day.

July 27, 2010

Participants: Jon, Gili, Miriam, Nadine

Game night was moved to Tuesday night at 7:30 owing to a conflict. And it's summer, so attendance is bound to be down.

In the Shadow of the Emperor

Jon 25, Gili 21, Miriam 18

My estimation of this game shrank a little, though I still enjoyed it. I really don't like game mechanics that put person A in a position of deciding to give a bonus to either persons B or C, where person A doesn't even get anything for doing so. Ugh.

I would say that this is what happens in this game with three players, but the truth is that it happened with four players, too. Maybe the game only shines with five players? Being both an election and an area control game, this is probable.

One other thing to note about this game is that, like Greed Incorporated, how you actually get victory points seems non-intuitive. It's not holding the electoral seats, but gaining the electoral seats that gives you points. Which means, it's best to lose control and regain an area every round, rather than simply keep it. Which makes little sense.

Otherwise, victory points are sparse and hidden within all of the other mechanics of the game. That's not necessarily bad, but it is, as I said, non-intuitive.

In our game, I did well in the beginning and then slid a little as the game went on. It appears that it is better to do better in the beginning of the game, rather than at the end, as it is worth slightly more points. Also a rather odd feature in a game.

Tichu

Jon/Gili 60, Nadine/Miriam 40

Miriam had time for one hand. They had nearly all of the good cards: Nadine had a bomb of queens, and Miriam had a full house of aces over kings, as well as the phoenix. Miriam went out first, but Nadine found herself left with a 9 and the Dog, which was not ideal.

Oltre Mare

Jon 107, Nadine 90something, Gili 70something

Nadine asked to try this again, and then complained at the beginning that it was too complicated, and then admitted at the end that it was good but too complicated. She is not good at games where a single choice of cards determines a number of different consequences; on the other hand, that's also the story with El Grande, at which she generally wins. So I don't know.

I don't like the trading mechanic, where other players get a bonus for trading on your turn. First of all, it's another kingmaker mechanic. Second, it discourages people from trading on their own turn.

I also didn't like the end mechanic, where one player ends the game and the game continues until all players have had an equal number of turns. I don't like it because many times you plan on one turn for the next turn, and it is not fair for some people to know that the game has ended when they take their last turn, while others don't. To solve this, I had the game go around one more time after the game ending condition. This worked very well.

In our game, we all started off in close proximity on the board, which was a little unfair for Gili who was in the middle. Nadine was getting points from playing only one card a turn but having the "X-3" chip, which is not ultimately as powerful as simply playing more cards each turn. All of the chips are worth about 2-3 points, but the gold symbol one is the most reliable.

I'm still not decided on the idea of buying cards. Obviously you have to buy or get cards when you are required to play a certain number. But how often do they return their purchase cost, I wonder?

Still an interesting game.

July 07, 2010

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Miriam, Abraham, Tal

Light night. Gili is planning for her daughter's bat mitzvah.

Dominion/Intrigue/Seaside

Jon 48, Nadine 44

Nadine may actually have had 45; she forgot to count her cards for Gardens.

Kingdoms: Village, Woodcutter, Feast, Gardens, Council Room, Secret Chamber, Scout, Trading Post, Duke, Ghost Ship

Two VP cards makes Scout an interesting buy. One Trading Post, one Council Room, one Woodcutter, two Villages, and Feasts completed my deck. Nadine doesn't play trashing cards, so she skipped the Trading Post in favor of more Council Rooms; she also didn't get Scouts. I'm surprised she did as well as she did.

Endeavor

Nadine 53, Miriam 49, Jon 47, Abraham 43

First plays for Miriam and Abraham. Nadine and I had played this before and had not been impressed; not bad, but not quite gelled, we thought. After this play, we both felt a but better about it, but still think there are too many positive and negative ideas to juggle on each turn, for not enough reward. I would compare it unfavorably to Oltre Mare, which has the same juggling idea with less variables.

Abraham started out strong, but lost tempo mid-game. I started off weak without the brick building, since bricks were in short supply and it then took me some time to be able to afford a building of level 3. Nadine was actually the only one to buy a level 5 building, though Abraham also got to that level at one point, while Miriam reached it on the last round (which gave her points, at least).

I sat in front of Miriam, and consequently she felt that I was purposely acting to thwart her the whole game, to the point that she actually got frustrated. On her last play she deliberately thwarted me to prevent me from getting three points while getting two for herself. It took some time to convince her that, in fact, she had a better play elsewhere that netted her 5 or 6 additional points, and I could get 2 points elsewhere, so I would only end up losing 1, anyway. Reluctantly, she changed her play, and ended up beating me with those few points. I think that ameliorated her.

Meanwhile, I sat behind Abraham and felt that he was thwarting me the whole game, but I took it in stride.

Yinsh

Abraham+, Miriam

I reminded Abraham how to play, and Miriam tried it for the first time. However, she doesn't really like abstracts, so I guess she won't play it again. Abraham removed two disks, and then Miriam took off two. The last one went back and forth until Abraham found a subtle forking play.

Tichu

Jon/Tal 455, Abraham/Miriam 145

We played four hands. In the second one, Miriam and I both called Tichu, when Tal was planning on calling it originally. I managed to go out first with the Dog, and then Tal went out. The score was 370 to -70. On the last round, Abraham bid and made Tichu, while Miriam struggled not to go out first. Tal was able to go out after her, and then I went out. Miriam's last cards were a pair of 5s.

June 30, 2010

Participants: Jon, Gili, Nadine, Elijah, Maxim, Sergey, Alona, Miriam

Maxim and Sergey return after a long absence due to conflicts, and they brought Alona with them. I guess Alona has played games with them before.

Game night was very chaotic, partly because everyone was trying to learn new games all at once, and partly because Nadine was trying to both teach one game and learn another at the same time, something which I should have stopped much earlier.

Oltre Mare

Elijah+, Nadine, Gili, Jon

We picked this to learn. I had never even read the rules, but it was simple enough to read them out loud and go through a sample turn.

OM is an expanded version of Bohnanza; that's all I could think the whole way through the game. They're not really identical in mechanics, but trading away cards you don't want to get what you do, and then planting them in sequenced groups, is the core of both games, and so it naturally leads to that conclusion.

Oltre Mare has more to it. Each round, you have to play a certain number of cards and gain the value of these cards. It's just that each time you play, you determine not only this turn's results, but the points you get based on the order you discard them, what you played last time, and will play next time, as well as your hand limit at the beginning of your next turn and the exact number of cards you are required to play next turn. Since the cards are designed to ensure that you can't generally get the best of all worlds on each play, you simply have to decide where to compromise each round. This is not that big of a deal, because, owing to the trading that happens on every players' turn, you can often make up for the compromise by the time it gets back to you again.

I thought it was a lovely game, with a few caveats. One is the mechanic that gives you a trade chip each time you trade with someone else on their turn. The player with the most trade chips at the middle and end of the games gains 6 points. Since this is entirely dependent on other players' whims, I dislike it. It's an unnecessary mechanic, anyway, since you already have incentives for trading. It's not too much of a deal, however.

What's bad is the trade rules. Each card has a "type", as well as symbols that indicate the types of actions you get when you play the cards, and the hand limit and number of cards you must play if the card ends up on top of your played stack. And the rules clearly say that you must tell the other players what types of cards you are trading them but may LIE about the other symbols.

As a Eurogamer, that mechanics simply turns me off, entirely. Some people may like it, war gamers mostly, and that's fine for them. In our game, we simply didn't bother to mention anything else on the card, trading entirely by card type.

One additional mechanic which I really dislike is the same one which annoyed me in a few other games, and it's the combination of a) a variable game ending trigger, and b) that the player to the right of the starting player always gets the last turn. This mechanic entirely screws the player who goes first, who typically has no control over when the game will end and is therefore typically caught entirely sunk after he has invested resources for his next turn, only to suddenly find that he has no next turn. Which is exactly what happened to me in this game, but I will point out that I objected to the mechanic already when the game started, entirely for this reason.

Other than these issues, the rest of the game is simple and should, in theory, be relatively quick. Our game wasn't, because of the chaos I mentioned above. And, strangely, Nadine came close to winning, despite not really paying attention and having an 11 card run in her stack of which she could use only 5. I didn't pay close enough attention to the final scores and how they came about to see how that happened.

Nadine writes: I thought the ships and ship tokens would be more relevant than they were, and they're about equal including the pirate blocker. It's different from other games, you're actions are very constrained so you have to plan within that which is hard. I was sure I had started off with 3 torahs, but I guess I hadn't. Even with the other game, I could have remembered that if I had concentrated.

Tribune

Sergey+, Maxim, Alona, Miriam

Nadine taught this to Sergey, Maxim, and Alona, and continued to teach them throughout their game. Miriam had played twice before, but she was still somewhat shaky on the rules. I think they all basically enjoyed it.

Nadine writes: Near the end I noticed that the money was an obligatory condition, but I said they could decide to play without it, I think it hurt Miriam but I'm not sure.

Tichu

Elijah/Gili 95, Jon/Nadine 5

We played one hand of this, and both Elijah and Gili were the less experienced players, as you can tell from our final scores.

Pillars of the Earth

Jon 45, Miriam, Maxim

Unfortunately, the people who played this game last time had not separated the expansion cards from the main set, and there are no distinguishing marks or reference sheets that enables one to distinguish between the original cards and those of the expansion. I made a reasonable guess for nearly all the cards, excepting one of two character cards, one of which showed up during play and I didn't understand its special ability at the time. We managed to muddle through.

First play for each of them. I taught them very straightforward and they picked it up nearly immediately, with only some confusion as to the difference between placing the workers and placing the master builders. I also showed them the later craftsman cards early on so they would have an idea what to look for as the game went on.

They both enjoyed the game. Maxim had been hoping to try Stone Age as an alternative to Caylus which he thinks is too long (as do I), but I was glad to play this instead (Gili owns Stone Age, but she didn't bring it).

Notre Dame

Nadine 53, Sergey 46, Gili 46, Alona 45, Elijah 35

Nadine writes: Only Gili and I had played before. Sergey started out strong with a lot of points from cars, and money but then couldn't keep it up. After two rounds the scores were close, 28 and 29 for 4, 25 for 1 person.

June 09, 2010

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

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

Dominion / Dominion Intrigue / Dominion Seaside

Ksenia 25, Jon 24, Gili 21, Miriam 21

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

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

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

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

Homesteaders

Abraham 53, Nadine 52, Gili 43

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

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

Power Grid

Jon 15+, Miriam 15, Ksenia 15

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

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

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

Mr Jack

Emily++, Eitan

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

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

Tichu

Nadine/Abraham 140, Jon/Miriam 60

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

Sticheln

Jon 27, Abraham 26, Eitan 14, Emily 4

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

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

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

Puerto Rico

Rachel 56, Nadine 51, Ksenia 47, Miriam 40

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

May 26, 2010

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

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

David came early.

Magic: The Gathering

Jon++, David

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

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

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

Homesteaders

David 80, Jon 71

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

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

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

Jon 56, Abraham 53, David 51

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

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

Dominion

David 34, Jon 33, Gili 25

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

It's Alive

Miriam+, Nadine

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

Tribune

Gili+, Nadine, Miriam

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

Parade

David 20, Abraham 27, Jon 46

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

Tichu

Jon-David/Miriam 1080, Nadine-Abraham 720

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

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

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

May 12, 2010

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Ksenia, Abraham, Sara, David, Gili, Eitan, Emily

Ksenia was able to join us again, for once. I think she was inspired after having won In the Shadow of the Emperor on shabbat. Also nice to see Sara coming more regularly.

Dominion/Intrigue/Seaside

Jon 51, Ksenia 41, Nadine 32

Scores approximate. First play of Dominion for Ksenia. Both Nadine and Ksenia started on VPs a tad too early, imho. We played with the Seaside Village that give +3 actions and +2 gold which is incredibly under-priced at a measly 3 cost. Tack on some card drawing cards (such as Nobles) and the play was pretty straightforward. Ksenia also took a Sea Hag, who was a minor annoyance since there were no cards that trashed other cards.

Dvonn

Abraham+, Sara

This may have been Sara's first play. Abraham won by a good margin.

Trias

Jon 31, Sara 30, Abraham 27

First plays for Abraham and Sara. Trias is one of those games that I love to pieces but don't get to play much because the older regulars in the group don't like it that much. Luckily, Abraham and Sara and Eitan and Emily are relative newcomers and so I can inflict these games on them at least once.

Also, Abraham is closer to my own feelings regarding which games he likes, and so he tends to like the games I like. He's willing to play Santiago, for instance.

Abraham and Sara both loved Trias, so I'm thrilled. It didn't take them long to get the hang of the basics, so most of the game was spent on tactics. Abraham managed to leach hex after hex away from other islands onto one on which he was alone, and the end scores were close. But he wasn't quite diverse enough, and I managed to end with control of a 12 hex island, which just edged me into first place.

Cuba

Nadine 80, Emily 79, Ksenia 67

First plays for Ksenia and Emily. Nadine started teaching a different group of people, but people showed up during the explanation, thought of joining and then some of them split off to start another game. I only played Cuba twice, and while I like it, I find the horizontal/vertical building activation mechanic on the players' boards annoying.

In this game, according to Nadine's notes: Nadine changed sugar into rum and shipped, Emily got money and had both shipping and building, and Ksenia had a blue stone and changed to VPs, but didn't do it every turn.

Taj Mahal

David 53, Gili 53, Eitan 44

This was formed from the overflow of Cuba. First play for Eitan. A tie for David and Gili.

Reef Encounter

Abraham 38, Jon 31, Sara 24

Sara's score is approximate. First play for me.

Some have compared Reef Encounter to Tigris and Euphrates or Go. Tom Vasel even claimed that once you have Reef Encounter, you can trade away T&E. While I've only played one game, so far it appears that nothing could be further from the truth. The only thing that RE and T&E share are the player screens and the tiles.

It's certainly a pretty and colorful game, and the theme is fresh and interesting. It's a good game, with quite a lot of depth to be explored. I enjoyed it fine, and will play again. But it's no T&E.

Not simply because it wasn't as good as T&E, which it wasn't. But because the strategies and tactics are so different from each other, it's like comparing apples and Chevies. They're simply different games, plain and simple.

In RE, the object is to collect tiles of high value. You collect tiles by starting your turn with one of your markers on an area containing five or more tiles of the same color (you collect N-4 tiles from a reef that you eat). The values of the tiles are partially under your control during the game, though the values only matter at the end of the game. Each tile of a color will be worth between 1 to 5 points at the end of the game. So, in addition to your having to collect the tiles, you have to spend some time locking high values onto the color tiles that you are collecting.

The same part of the board that controls the end values of the tile colors also controls which colors are "dominant" during game play. When one color is dominant over another, tiles of the dominant color can be used to kick tiles of the recessive color (replace them) off the board. You can use then use the tiles that you kick off the board to control the tile values/dominance, or you can place them back on the board later.

At the end of each round, you get some more tiles from random piles, as well as a "control cube" - you spend a control cube on a color each time you want to place one or more tiles of that color.

Lastly, you have four markers, which sit on reefs and protect the spaces immediately orthogonal to them from being eaten by other colors, regardless of which color is dominant. Add to that some wacky board geometry, and you spend a lot of your time trying to figure out where the best place on the board is to grow your reefs so that they can get big before you eat them - and without other people's tiles eating yours before you can harvest them.

In our game, both Sara and Abraham had large reefs that they ate, but Abraham got the colors locked in his favor. I had the choice on the last round which way to swing one of the tiles, and I swung it in favor of Abraham because I thought Sara had eaten more than Abraham had in his color specialty. Turns out I was wrong. If I had chose the other way, Abraham would have had 8 less points, and Sara 8 more points, and I would still probably have lost by a point or two.

R-Eco

David 16, Gili 15, Eitan 5

Also first play for Eitan, which surprised me.

Tichu

Jon/David 515, Nadine/Ksenia 385

First play for Ksenia. This did not start out well for us.

In the first round, they both went out first. The next round we gained 15 points to their 85. The third round we split 50/50. David and I had crappy hands all three times.

Finally I got a decent pull and I called Grand Tichu (2 aces, 2 kings, Phoenix, jack, and 2 nines). It wasn't a cakewalk, but I made it, plus another 50/50 break. We were still losing, and Nadine wanted to quit while they were ahead. I coerced her into playing one more round, in which David and I both went out. David went out first, and Nadine was on my right with only one card. And I had several cards and the Dog. Luckily, Nadine's card wasn't higher than a jack, and I was able to slowly play through all my cards and exit with the Dog.

April 07, 2010

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

Lori is a new attendee who found us through an Internet search. She had no gaming experience.

It's Alive

Lori+, David, Jon, Nadine, Gili

I don't prefer this five player, but this one moved ok. And it was nice for the new player to win. We played the basic game.

Settlers of Catan

Lori 10, Jon 9, Gili 8

And she won this one, too, but it was pretty close. I got hit by the robber three times, and was one card away from stealing Longest Road from her.

After two new games, Lori couldn't handle learning any other new ones.

Power Grid

David 15, Nadine 14, Abraham 13

It looked like Nadine was winning through most of the game, but, as is usual for Power Grid, only the last few rounds really made a difference. They played on France.

Boggle

Jon, Gili, Lori

Lori couldn't handle any new games, but she could play this. Gili, on the other hand, is a native Hebrew speaker, so this was a challenge for her. I'm fairly facile at the game.

To balance the game, we played with handicaps. I could only find words of five letters or more, Lori had to find four letters, and Gili three letters. We earned for any words not on the other players' lists, and +1 bonus point for each letter beyond our minimum (so I earned 2 points for a six letter word). This worked fairly well.

Gili won about half the games, but not by a large amount. We had a few boards where I couldn't find any five letter words, though I could see a number of four letter words that the others missed.

Tichu

Jon/Abraham 1090, David/Nadine 1010

A complete game, which lasted about 2 hours and 12 rounds. Abraham bid and made two grand tichu's. Scoring was very close the entire game.

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.

November 18, 2009

Participants: Nadine, Yona, Dylan, Gili, David, Emily, Eitan, Abe, Hersh, Navot, Shai, Uri

Nadine wrote this report while I am away:

About 5 people RSVP'd to come at 7.

When David walked in at about 7:20 he found 9 people playing Fluxx. So I
like Fluxx, but an explanation is in order for that. When Dylan arrived at
6:30, Yona and I were just sitting down to dinner. I said he could wait for
more people, or we could play Fluxx. So we played Fluxx, with 3, while
eating, Dylan had never played. Then Hersh arrived and joined, then Gili,
and Navot and Shai who are new, and then Emily and Eitan. Yona left as we
were filling up. We were still waiting for David and Abe, and everyone
hadn't even had one turn in Fluxx. We were drawing about 7 cards per turn,
for a while Play All, then Play 4. The first game with 3 players, I won
after about two rounds on the 10 card goal. I almost won earlier when Yona
played a goal which he didn't realize you can win with only Peace, but took
it back when Dylan pointed out that I had Peace and would win. The second
game, David helped Hersh figure out how to win from a large hand, with the
brain and brain no TV goal. Everyone had come in and sat down in front of
Gili, so she never got her turn.

Some people wanted to play Shadows. It turned out almost everyone wanted to
play Shadows. David and Gili and I were going to play Notre Dame, but
realized we could play something heavier. I picked Year of the Dragon, and
David agreed even though he's tired of it from playing online which he
didn't mention then. After teaching and watching Shadows, I wasn't really
into Year of the Dragon, so when Abe came he took over for me and I played
Shadows which was fun. It was Abe's second time playing Year of the Dragon.

We suspected a few people of being the traitor at different times, but it
was hard to tell. We did well most of the game, and won Excalibur and the
Grail. We had 8 white swords and needed two more swords for 12. We were at
10 siege engines. I lost my last life to fight an engine, with 8 card
points. I had lost a life earlier on a tie at 8, but this time won. Dylan
revived me with the Grail, but the game ended before my next turn. We barely
won, but got the swords by winning Saxons with an extra sword. So the upshot
was that even with 7 players, there was no traitor! Dylan said that happened
last time he played too, with 7 also. Abe did well in Dragon, David lost a
gamble because Abe had a card left to take first place to take book points,
but David won anyway.

I taught 4 new players Vegas, which isn't hard to play on your own once it's
explained, but I kept an eye on it. A friend of Eitan's, Uri came, and
learned Notre Dame. Gili did well but David beat her on money. I played
Puerto Rico with Dylan and Hersh, Dylan did most of the teaching, Hersh had
never played. We gave Hersh corn, Dylan was first and I was second. Hersh
did craft quite a bit, and did well, we pointed out trying to think ahead
and not letting people trade too easily. Dylan and I had Factory but I only
produced 3 goods, and Hersh and Dylan had Harbor, Dylan and I got two big
buildings, I had a full Guild Hall, but Dylan shipped much more.

I played Tichu at the same time for one game, David called Grand Tichu and
his partner Uri, who had never played before, went out second. Abe did point
out on the card passing that Uri didn't mean to give him what he passed, and
gave it back.

Fluxx - Nadine, Hersh
Nadine, Yona, Dylan, Gili, Emily, Eitan, Abe, Hersh, Navot, Shai

Year of the Dragon
David 99
Gili 77 or so
Abe 93 or so

Shadows Over Camelot
We won, no traitor
Dylan, Emily, Eitan, Hersh, Navot, Shai, Nadine

Notre Dame
David 59 +4
Gili 59 +0
Uri 36
Abe 26

Vegas Showdown - no one had played before
Shai 63
Eitan 60
Navot 48
Emily 45

Tichu - one game
David and Uri 400
Abe and Nadine 0

Puerto Rico
Building, Shipping, Bonus
Dylan 24, 25, 10 59
Nadine 24, 15, 14 53
Hersh 17, 26, 6 49

November 04, 2009

Participants: Nadine, David, Eitan, Emily, Gili

I'm away for the month; game night was at Nadine's. The following report is from Nadine.

Fluxx

David, Eitan, Nadine

David on the second round when Eitan picked a random card out of David's hand, which did it.

Amun Re

David 41, Gili 36, Eitan 35, Nadine 32, Emily 30

Half and end scores:
Eitan 18, 35
David 14, 41
Emily 13, 30
Nadine 10, 32
Gili 8, 36

First play for Eitan and Emily. David plays in online tournaments. Emily didn't realize that bricks counted in most pyramids, but Gili probably would have beat her for most pyramids in any case but it might have been more competitive. A lot of duplicate power cards, I got 5 of the move the temple count.

Tichu

Nadine and Eitan 200, David and Emily 100

But it was close, D&E lost because David called Tichu on the first game and
didn't make it. Second game with more experience Emily could have gone out
third instead of last.

October 14, 2009

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

Good company.

Bridge Troll

Jon, Nadine, Gili

I was considering trading this. We played it one more time to see. First play for Gili.

Result: Nadine decided she didn't like it, but that's typical with Nadine when she doesn't get the strategy in a game. I still like it - maybe less than other fillers we have - and would keep it, but only if others wanted to play it. Gili thought it was ok, but wasn't enthusiastic. As no one was willing to speak up strongly for it, I decided to trade it.

It's got nice components and the game play works, though it's rough in some places. The game works better with three than it does with six. Six wasn't really fun, as you could go the entire game without scoring any real points. Three players worked fine. Several of the mechanics seemed to exist solely for game balance; I'm guilty of doing the same thing with the Villagers in It's Alive, but that's only one mechanic, not several.

The core of the game-play is blind bidding and the random results of what happens thereafter, which is good if you like that sort of thing, but it's not for my group. Again, it's a decent game, and a lot of groups will like it, hopefully the one to which I'm passing it onto.

Traders of Carthage

Nadine 19, Abraham 17, Gili 15

Playing this filler after Bridge Troll, both Gili and Nadine said that they like this game better.

Magic: the Gathering

David++, Jon+

David and I drafted. I picked up G/R with a splash of W. David had B/G/R. We each had some neat comboes.

David had a mana producer that produced mana of any color his opponent could produce, and then some sunburst cards, which gain bonuses depending on the number of different colors used to cast them. I had an equipment that automatically moves to any new creature that I brought in, and a creature with "champion" that sends a creature out of play while it is in play.

They were fun games, although I lost the second hand because I was shy of mana.

Cities and Knights of Catan

Abraham 13, Nadine 12, Gili 10

First play for Abraham. Not Nadine's usual cup of tea, in part because it's quite longer than Settlers. Their game lasted three and a half hours.

Dominion

David 26, Jon 23, Emily 23, Eitan 7

First play for Eitan, second for Emily. Emily wasn't thrilled with her first game, mostly because it was dominated by Militias. No Militias in this game, but there were Witches.

Bonus actions were Cellar, Market, and Laboratory. Bonus cash was Workshop and Market. Defense against Witches was Remodel. Getting to 8 cash was nearly impossible, especially with Witches filling our hands with Curses. We also had Garden.

David played a Market - Cellar - Garden strategy. I used an early Remodel hoping to slim down my hand, but early Curses had me struggling to stay even as the game went on. Emily took an early Witch. Eitan didn't make the transition to buying victory points early enough.

I thought I was doing better than Emily, but turns out I was wrong. I did manage to Remodel my one Gold to a Province, which was the only one taken, I think.

Jon 39, Emily 33, David 24, Eitan 19

In this game, the only bonus action was Market. We also had Chapel, Thief, and Bureaucrat. Eitan tried Mines, but Emily kept stealing his Golds. David and Emily both played Thieves, and stole from each other, although Emily was far luckier.

David took a Chapel, but didn't quite get it to work right. I think he's not using them correctly; he thinks he just didn't luck out. He got discouraged mid-game and gave up trying at some point.

I took an early Chapel, let it work wonders, and, though slightly and disconcertingly slowed by an early Thief taking a Copper I actually needed to buy my first Market, still managed to get on a roll. I had no cash at all, but I had 8 of the 10 Markets, and a Workshop. I began rolling Provinces very nicely, but without a Cellar, I slowed down after four or five Provinces. Emily and Eitan both bought one Province before me, using their Bureaucrats and Thieves. Eitan once again didn't transition to accumulating VPs early enough.

Eitan really liked the game, and Emily also enjoyed it more than last time.

Tichu

Jon/Emily+, David/Eitan

First play for Emily and Eitan, I think they liked it. We played three hands, and I called and made Tichu on two of them.

September 02, 2009

Participants: Jon, Gili, David K, Nadine, Eitan, Emile, Tal

Eitan and Emile just showed up midway through game night, having seen one of my advertisements. Unfortunately, we were in the middle of a game. I set them up with some two-player games, and by the time we were all done, they had to leave. Hopefully they'll be back.

Dominion

David, Nadine, Gili, Jon

This set had the three major attack cards - Witch, Thief, and Militia - but also had Moat. It had no cards to trash cards, however. It also had only a single card that gave bonus actions, and that was Festival (+1 action, +2 cards). The Throne Room could double that. Still, it didn't look easy to get to the magic number of 8.

I bought Woodcutter, Militia, and as many Festivals as I could get my hands on, which was only 3. David managed to get 5 of them, and, together with great Throne Room draws, always seemed to be a step ahead of everyone else. I picked the only Province in the game early on, but I also collected the most curses owing to not concentrating on Moats the way everyone else did.

Moats ran out first, followed by Festivals, and then it looked like it would either be Woodcutters or Duchys, and it ended up being Duchys.

David 40, Jon 29

We played this to cap off the evening. In this game, there were no attack cards, but there was Black Market, which let David pick up the Witch. To counter that I Black Market'ed the Chapel, dumping Estates, Copper, and Curses. I also had Mines and the guy who trashed Copper to get +3 (forget the name). David picked up the Thief, but it didn't harm me.

Still, though I trashed 4 curses, I still ended up with 6. Also, I might have taken vicory points a tad too soon; I went slow and steady, but David picked up a bunch in the remaining rounds. The game ended with Markets, Throne Rooms, and then Curses.

Pillars of the Earth

Nadine 48, David 45, Jon 43, Gili 31

OK, I really liked this game for a while, but last time I played I was hit with extraordinary bad luck with the Master Builder pulls. I wrote this off to a fluke. This time I got the same extraordinary bad luck with the Master Builder pulls, and I'm now a little dissatisfied with this mechanic. Surely there must be a way to make these a bit more fair.

It didn't help that I played with very low money, as this didn't allow me to take advantage of the very few times I was actually pulled out of the bag at a better time. But one of the reasons I didn't have this money was bad luck in timing to begin with; David and Nadine ended up with the two craftsman that give bonus money, and wouldn't you know it, they both won. It was fairly close though.

Nadine looked like she was behind, but she had tons of money to convert to points at the end, as well as buy the best craftsmen and goods she needed for a final push (of 22 points). David was scoring less than me early on, but I knew he would overtake me with much better craftsmen pulls as the game went on, which was due to luck in the Master Builder draws, mostly.

R-Eco

Eitan 6+, Emile 6-

First play for both. We taught this to them to play while we played PotE. They enjoyed it a lot, and ended on a virtual tie. Eitan had tossed less, but both of them tossed more than 10 cards each.

Mr Jack

Emile (Detective)+, Eitan (Criminal)

First play for both. Another game to play while we were finishing PotE. They both enjoyed this too, I understand. Jack's identity was revealed on round 6, and he was captured on round 7.

Tichu

Jon/Tal, David/Nadine

We played one hand while waiting for Mr Jack to finish, but Eitan and Emile ended up leaving after they finished, anyway. Nadine bid Tichu, but then found herself left with 2 cards: the Dog and a 6. And her partner had only 1 card.

July 15, 2009

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Elijah, Yael, Abraham, Rachel A

Elijah brought his younger sister Yael. Scores aren't exact; I left my notes at home.

R-Eco

Nadine 15, Elijah 13, Jon 9, Yael 3

First play for Yael. She didn't like it, and found it too confusing. Nadine tried to help her with strategic decisions (as opposed to simple rules explanation), and I tried to stop it since I thought it was confusing her; I think Nadine was right, however.

Yael didn't dump, but she also didn't score any points. I took early dump and a few chips, but couldn't get any more after that. Elijah and Nadine dumped a lot, but also got tons of chips which I couldn't seem to get.

It's Alive

Yael 46, Abraham 41, Jon 37

First play of the advanced version for Yael. She was initially put off by trying this version, having played the basic version many times and winning most often. But she did fine and won anyway. I thought I might have been doing ok, but realized near the end that it's no way to win if you have no cash. I began maximizing my cash, but only got to do it for two rounds before the game ended.

Remember kids: cash at the end of the game is straight victory points, if it's less than or equal to half your board.

Year of the Dragon

Nadine 111, Jon 103, Elijah 80

In our game, medicine and helmets came up early, followed by one famine. Then there was a large break until taxes and a final famine.

I worked out that I needed only 5 people for all of this, and went for books around 1/3 of the way through. I ended up gaining massive points in books, but five rounds from the end I could already see that I was not going to win against Nadine's end game scoring. She was going to have massive amounts of people (9) and several Buddha points. And so she did. She was nearly keeping pace with me anyway, having 6 huts, double dragon (first move) and a princess.

I lost all but one of my huts and people in the last two rounds of the game.

Apples to Apples

The Dealer 8, Yael 6, Jon 5, Abraham 2

We filled out time with this. Two cards each from the two guessing players, and two more cards from the box (The Dealer). Naturally, the dealer won.

Dominion

Jon 39, Abraham 33, Elijah 7, Nadine 6

We were all happy to play this. We had Witch and Spy, but also Moat and Chapel. Nevertheless, Nadine was still unhappy with the Witch and unable to formulate a counter strategy against it. She grew bored by the end, when it was obvious that there was no way for her to win (she had 11 curses in her deck at the end).

Elijah also got hit with a lot of curses. Abraham got hit with some, too, but he used a Chapel effectively to dump most of them. He had a very synergistic deck of Spies, a Festival, a Cellar, and a few coins. It took quite some time to get going, but eventually, though it was annoying to everyone else, it started netting him a number of victory cards.

My deck started better, however, with first turns Witch and Chapel. After netting a Silver, I dumped 4 Coppers to the Chapel and then my three Estates. I've used Chapel to dump Estates before, and even a few coppers, but this was the first time I dumped so many Coppers all at once. A lean and perfect deck is just worth it. You can only do this when there is no Thief, however.

I took a Festival and then another Witch; I regretted the Witch, as I should have taken another Festival. And then I got a number of victory point cards, and my deck slowed down. Abraham's began building steam, and then Nadine ended the game just to get it over with.

Tichu

Nadine/Elijah 115, Jon.Abraham -115

I began with a very poor Grand Tichu bid, and ended up going out last. Not a good start. It could only be equaled by Abraham doing the same thing, which he promptly did on round three. Round two, no one called Tichu, so naturally I went out first. And round four, Elijah called and failed to make Tichu; Abraham and I both went out first.

July 08, 2009

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Gili, Oren (?), Bill, Abraham

Gili came with her young cousin, whose name is Oren, I think.

Bridge Troll

Jon 25, Bill 24, Nadine, Gili, Oren, Abraham

Nadine and I had played this once before with three players, but with the wrong rules. This was the first play for everyone else.

The rule we left out last time was the one where each bidder receives the bid stones of one of the other bidders and the end of the round (lowest bidder generally takes the highest bidder's stones, and so on). The designer told me that this was an important rule, and we had to play the game with it. So we did. And while it's a decent mechanic, it nearly completely eliminates any reason to not bid at all, and thus get free stones from the center.

The number of stones you get from not bidding is now not significant compared to the number you get if you bid anyway. Furthermore, now the center stones run out (since nothing is supplying the center, except a very occasional goat) and you end up taking your stones from other players. Often, the second player to pass takes the newly acquired stones from the first player to pass. It's another one of those cases where we got the rules wrong on the first play, and when we found out the right rule, we kind of liked our way better.

And there is a rules ambiguity: the rules say to take the stones from the player who has the most. But if player A has 8 stones, and player B has 7, do I take all 5 of my stones from player A, or do I alternate taking from whomever has the most after each stone, so that players A and B are both left with 5?

Onto our game.

This time I forgot a rule which I remembered last time, namely that one of the cards is face down each round. We remembered as soon as the first Seer was flipped up (the Seer being the card whose special power is to peek at the face down card).

A six player game is just a mess of chaos, which will appeal to some people. It was so confusing that I had to act as facilitator, calling out whose turn it was to act, who won the bid, and so on every single round, right up to the end of the game.

With six bidders, you have scant control over what actually happens to you during the game. You may be able to bid very high and secure a single card once, but you may also (or not) end up taking the last penalty card, depending on whether someone else drops out of the bidding or not.

As a short game, this works out fine, similarly to the chaos of the bidding in For Sale. But the game is a wee too long for me for this type of mechanic. Not very much too long; just a bit too long. We finished in about 1.5 hours. That's about an hour for most people.

And that's really what it feels like: a very long game of For Sale. If you like For Sale, you'll like this game. Our group liked it well enough as a filler game, especially since there are not too many 6 player filler games available. They all said that they would play again, especially now that they had a little more grasp of the rules. I was somewhat less enamored, but I would also play again. I think I would prefer 4 or 5 players over 6, however.

Traders of Carthage

Gili, Oren, Abraham

Gili needed another filler game, as she and Oren had to leave early. First play for Oren. I don't know the results.

Agricola

Nadine 39, Jon 31, Bill 7

First play for Bill.

Nadine had some killer occupations at the beginning of the game that exempted her from needing to worry about food. There is probably a direct line between this and her win, in my opinion.

But it's hard to draw any sort of straight line in Agricola, even when there are only one or two rounds left in the game. You find yourself adding and re-adding the dozens of different possible moves, trying to figure out which one actually leaves you with the most victory points at the end. If you're prone to AP, that makes for a long game. Otherwise, you eventually go with your gut and then realize you made a colossal mess of you end game, which is what happened to me.

Bill had plowed fields and grain up the wazoo, since he got a field every time he took a grain. But that, and some final pastures, was all he had. And he starved by two food in the last harvest, anyway.

Nadine had vegetables and tons of animals, since she got an extra sheep when she took a sheep and also converted three sheep into a boar and a cattle. And got an extra wood and two food whenever she took wood. She was all ranched out on round 4 or 5, and spent the rest of her time growing her family and slaughtering her overflowing animal population.

I had early conversion to a stone house, and got some grain fields and pastures, but could never hold any animals or grains long enough to reproduce them. I ended with final grain and sowing, but no animals. I got a bunch of bonus points for improvements, however.

Tichu

Abraham/Nadine 280, Jon/Bill 120

Abraham stuck around until the end of our Agricola game, and I took pity on him so we played two hands of Tichu. First play for Bill. Bill enjoyed it well enough.

In the first round, RHO went out, and then I could have gone out, but then my LHO would go out, leaving them to collect all of my partner's tricks. And he had all of our tricks. Both LHO and partner had a single card, so instead of playing my 7 card straight, I played one at a time working my way downward. And wouldn't you know? Both LHO and partner held 8s. 200 points for opps.

In the second game, Abraham bid and made his Tichu, but the only cards he scored were the Phoenix and a five, netting him 80 points to our 120.

June 10, 2009

Participants: Jon, Elijah, Nadine, Ben, Max, Abraham, Gili, David K

A few early birds showed up and started playing in the living room. The flow of games that were played confused me; I'm hazy on anything played in which I didn't.

Mr Jack

Nadine, Elijah

Nadine re-taught this to Elijah, but she wasn't interested in finishing it as other people came in.

Dominion

Max 32, Jon 30, Abraham 27, Ben

First play for Ben, who didn't manage to find synergy (or, in his words, had very bad luck).

Thief was in the game, as was Festival, Feast, and Library, all of which should lead to the Festival-Feast-Library and no treasure strategy. Abraham headed that way, but he got there by means of Remodels. Somehow he got the synergy going too late, though it was doing nicely at the end.

I did something of the same thing, but I also added some silvers and golds. I lost a silver to an early thief, but as the game went on, thieves are used less which made the treasures safer bets.

Max used thief and Gardens to rack in coppers. He only made it to 30some cards, but it was still enough to squeak out a victory. For one thing, his point accumulation started earlier than ours did.

Ben tried a thief without success. He managed to get an early Province, but then his two silvers were stolen by Max and he never recovered.

Boggle

Gili, Nadine, Elijah

Meanwhile, these guys played this quick filler while waiting for David to show up.

Tichu

David, Gili, Elijah, Nadine

When David showed up, we only had ten minutes left to Dominion, so they played a hand of this.

Agricola

Jon 50, David 42, Nadine 35, Max 35

First play for Max. Max requested to play this, as he had bought a copy and hadn't been able to get it to the table where he plays, fearing that it would be too complex. After playing, he realize that he was right; he liked the game, but it's too complex for his group.

David complained early on about how poorly he was doing, as usual, even though Nadine and I saw through him. He was also convinced that my few early occupations (gain a vegetable when I take one of the food spaces; add two items when I sow) put me majorly in the lead. I admit that they were decent.

However, I gained nearly twenty points in the last two rounds. If two of these had gone awry, or one of them and David achieved some other sudden coup, the end would have been different.

In my last rounds, I added my fifth clay room (+1 for the room, +2 for a minor improvement that gave me +2 for a five room house), converted to stone (+5), played an occupation that gave me an additional +1 per stone room (+5), solidified having the most/tied for most number of occupations (+3 due to an earlier played occupation), and gained a wheat (+2).

David thought he stole back the most occupations on the final round, but he hadn't noticed that I played one on the penultimate round as well, so he only tied him. This gave him +3 as well, but didn't prevent me from getting my points.

I had my vegetables and a stove, but I usually had to take at least one action before each harvest to ensure I had enough food. David had fantastic wheat and baking running at mid-game, and so didn't need to worry about food the second half of the game. he also had a pasture with a bunch of each type of animal (minor improvement let him mix animals). Unfortunately, he was exactly one animal short of 3 points in each one.

Nadine expressed dissatisfaction with the artificial limitations of points for animals and produce and so on, as well as how 1 sheep is the same as 3 sheep, but different than 4 sheep. This leads to all sorts of annoying calculation that shouldn't be necessary.

Nadine spent a very long time calculating on round 12 and 13, and in the end it didn't matter that much. Max had good pastures, produce, and animals, but his house and bonus points were small.

Cosmic Encounter

Elijah+, Gili, Ben

Elijah always like to play this, and I thought it might make Ben happy to play something he's familiar with. He still lost, though.

This was Gili's second play, but had been so long since her first play that she had to relearn the game. She hadn't been too impressed with her last play; this one she enjoyed somewhat more.

Ben played Void and something, Elijah Machine and something, Gili Visionary and something.

Traders of Carthage

Gili, Ben, Elijah

First play for Ben, and probably second or third for Elijah. Ben enjoyed this game which is weight-wise on par with R-Eco.

April 29, 2009

Participants: Nadine, Hershel, Abraham, Jon

Game night at Nadine's house following Yom Haatzmaut. I arrived last.

Taluva

Jon 3/1, Hershel 2/1, Avraham 2/0/+, Nadine 2/0/-

I suggest this as an opener, as I'm still exploring it, it's not too long, it's pretty, and it's elegant. First play for Abraham.

I think I played one more time than either Hershel or Nadine, and this is my type of game, so I was able to plan several rounds ahead in certain areas, while the others were still exploring the possibility space. Toward the end, the others colluded to see if they could stop me, but every place they could hurt or stop me was protected.

Abraham picked the game up well and would have done better, but he forgot one of the rules which meant that his master plan couldn't come to fruition. I suspect he won't make that mistake next time.

Everyone enjoyed the game for what it was. I have yet to play it with less than four players; the extra turns for each player would make a significant difference, I believe.

Dominion

Nadine 30, Jon 29, Hershel 24, Abraham 24

Suggested by Abraham, and enjoyed by all. The set of card contained no attack cards and Gardens to boot. There were ample extra actions to go around. So the game ended reasonably quickly.

Abraham tried a unique strategy of using all of his extra buys to acquire coppers, and then buying several Gardens. But because of the length of the game, he could still make them only worth 3 each by game end, which was not enough. I thought I was doing well, but I also knew that Nadine had 2 Provinces before I started buying mine, so although I caught up, it wasn't quite enough.

Jon 32, Nadine 24, Hershel 23, Abraham 22

We had Gardens again, but this time no extra actions, and no extra cash, except for Militia. To make matters worse, we had Thief, which made buying Gold's nigh impossible; in fact, no one did.

I think someone got to 7 cash twice in the game. Instead the Duchies wet first, and I finished the Gardens while Nadine finished the Estates. Hard to work with Gardens when someone is stealing your cards all the time, but I managed to steal enough back to make my Gardens each worth 3.

Bridge

Jon/Hershel, Nadine/Abraham

Hershel hadn't played in many years, and it turns out that even when he had, he didn't use any sort of bidding system. Abraham is very much a beginner. So we did a lot of learning. Hershel and I made two partials and set our opponents in a partial. They made one partial.

It's Alive

Jon 49, Nadine 42, Abraham 27, Hershel 22

Abraham suggested we play this, and Hershel wondered if I wasn't already sick of it, but I'm not. In fact, I'm still trying out new strategies.

Jack the publisher seems to feel that you should never buy on your turn, and I tried something like that, but it's not always practical. In any case, I won not because of any strategy, but because I drew all three 10 cost coffins (and one villager). Nadine drew a coffin and no villager, while Abraham drew both 4 and 6 villagers. I ended with no cash, while Abraham had more than he could score.

Tichu

Jon/Hershel 535, Nadine/Abraham 265

We taught this to Hershel who liked it. It's certainly less brain-intensive and more forgiving than Bridge.

I started with a Tichu, but lost most of the points: 115 to 85. They won most of the point in the next round, too: 140 to 160.

I bid and made Tichu again, but we actually ended with a -15 score to their 115: 235 to 265. I keep saying that Tichu is more important than points, and it is, but I guess you do need to look out for points.

Hershel ventured a Tichu on the last round and he made it. My hand was equally good, so I went out second, giving us a final victory.