October 05. 2011

Gili, Eitan, Emily, Nadine

R-Eco

Emily 18, Nadine 2, Eitan 1

We managed to end with positive scores. Emily had most of the chips. We played with random piles, the -2s showed up early. Everyone dumped.

Stone Age

Nadine 186, Eitan 136, Emily 131, Gili 120

The first time I've won this. I used the starvation strategy and it actually worked. Last time I tried it I decided too late, after I already was up 2 on the food track. I paid for food my first two turns and on the last one. I had no picture cards, but I had multipliers, and I rolled well. I ended with 9 people and 9 buildings. Eitan did well but took cards instead of buildings on the last round, so I got 3 buildings. Eitan and Emily competed with Gili for picture cards, and Gili had terrible luck with rolls. She had 6 picture cards, Eitan and Emily 3 each. We had a lot of tough choices with good card options.

Tribune

Eitan+, Nadine, Emily

We agreed this was our most boring time playing this game. It's less competitive with 3 players, more mechanical. I started with two factions first round, and didn't get another one until the last round. Eitan and Emily took a lot of factions, and with a lot of high cards. We played with 4 victory conditions. When Eitan won, I had 3 victory conditions, and was 3 laurels away from the fourth. Emily had one victory condition, but would have reached four next round. Emily went first on a round when two leaders were available together. Eitan forgot that he was getting the last laurel he needed from the purple faction. He had faction markers, laurels, tribune and favor of the gods. I had favor of the gods, legions and money.

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.

April 6, 2011

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Jessica, Gili, Mace, Matias

Jessica lives close by in Jerusalem. I was recently introduced to her, and she had never heard of these new games. She dropped by to give them a try and enjoyed herself. She promises to return. Matias lives in Argentina and comes to Israel on business every year; this is the first time he checked out the game scene. He is an experienced player and also plans to return (the next time he is back in Israel).

Boggle

Jon, Jessica, Nadine, Gili

Nadine, Jessica, and I started off with this while waiting for Gili and Mace. We were all on the same level, give or take, which is a new and positive experience for me (I typically win). We played 4 letter minimum. Gili joined us for a second and third game; being a native Israeli, she plays a three letter minimum. We all tied in the second game, but due to the three Americans cancelling out nearly all of each others' words, Gili won the last game by a reasonable margin.

Tribune

Gili+, Jon, Nadine, Mace, Jessica

First play for Jessica. The trick was to find a game for five that is a good intro game for a brand new player but also not too long or too boring. I usually start new players with Settlers, but I don't have the 5-6 player expansion (I don't really like it). I suggested Power Grid, but some of the others thought it would be too long.

Tribune is a little overwhelming at first, but Jessica picked it up quickly enough. For some reason, the rule "you must play either more cards OR cards with a higher value" seems to be very difficult for some players to wrap their head around; Nadine and others corroborate this, though I never understood why. I typically get more confused when two areas of the board have similar but contradictory requirements.

On the first round, Mace mistook the light blue faction for a dark blue. As a result, he had a hand full of dark blue cards and tried to take over the light blue faction. That set him back a bit. There were a few other, lesser, mistakes of that sort. While we were playing, Matias arrived. he spent the second half of the game watching and acting as rules arbiter.

Nadine got to three out of the four required victory conditions by the second round, and looked poised to win by the end of round three. However, she lost the temporary favor of the gods, and stalled the rest of the game. I got to three win conditions in round four, with the same results. I secured the fourth condition in round five and only needed to convert my temporary favor to a permanent one. Although I peeked at the card color I needed on the board, every single card of that color was taken by other players (purely by coincidence), I didn't have any in my hand, and I couldn't pick one randomly from the stack of five.

Gili proceeded to win the game at the end of the round.

Settlers of Catan

Jessica 10, Jon 7, Matias 8

First play for Jessica. I shunted Nadine and Mace off to play Dominion so that I could hook Jessica onto the gateway game. As often happens with Settlers, the new player won, which only adds to the hook element. I think she greatly enjoyed the game.

However, I must note that once during the game, while waiting for certain resources, she said, "There's an element of Go Fish in here." Probably the most insulting comparison since Gilad said that Cosmic Encounter reminded him strongly of Munchkin.

At the beginning of the game, I warned her of my SoC maxim: when two people fight over the Longest Road, the third player usually wins. Matias started off strongly, getting to five points while Jessica and I were at 3. We both made it to 4 while he jumped to 7 by gaining the Longest Road. Matias then stalled out.

Jessica stole his Longest Road and I encouraged them both to spend the rest of the game fighting over it (humorously, of course, given my opening strategic advice). I made it to 7 points on the board with my third soldier ready to play; Matias made it to 8 points on the board, ready to steal back Longest Road. But Jessica managed to end the game with a settlement.

Dominion/Prosperity

Mace 67, Nadine 53

Mace and Nadine played with mostly Prosperity cards, which is one of the expansions that Mace doesn't own and that Nadine is less familiar with. The first game appears to have gone typically enough.

Mace 156, Nadine 75

But wow for the second game. Mace took every Colony and tons of additional points by continuously triple playing a card that gave him points every time he bought a card; he kept buying coppers. Somehow that didn't slow down his hand, though I don't know why, exactly.

156 is certainly a high score for our group. Around the interwebs, some people have reported scores of 240 or so, and one even claimed a score in the 400s.

R-Eco

Jon 16, Jessica 3, Matias 2

First play for both Matias and Jessica. I played with my usual random point stacks (mixed colors and order) rather than the prescribed color and order stacking.

Matias loved the game and hopes to bring it back to his group. He pulled some early points, but he dumped again and again and again, until he had a deck of illegal dumps; 16 points worth, I think. Jessica and I dumped lightly, but I pulled in far more chips than she did.

March 16, 2011

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

Quiet night with lots of play.

Boggle

Jon, Nadine, Gili

We played three games while waiting for others to arrive. I played only five letter words, but I also noted four letter words, mostly so I could cancel them out against Nadine. Nadine played four letter words, while Gili, a native Hebrew speaker, played three letter (and the occasional two letter) words. No one really kept score, anyway.

Glory to Rome

Binyamin+, Jon, Gili, David K, Nadine

First play for David. We played that you could not have more than four buildings in progress at any one time. While we were wary about how Forum would play, since we thought we knew a few ways to counter it, we decided to give it one more try. Binyamin ended the game with a Forum victory; I was a few moments away from ending the game with Catacombs. If I had done so, I would have won, followed closely by Gili.

Binyamin thinks, and I agree, that the trouble with Forum is not that it's unbalanced, which it isn't. It's that it makes the game less fun. It's just not a fun experience to do well and play well, working toward something, and then not have the game even judged on that criteria. It would be different if Forum's exceptional win criteria weren't so easy to fulfill. I generally don't like mechanics that end a game at someone's will; this is much worse. I think that we're going to have to change Forum to something like "end the game and gain +3 points" or something.

Magic: The Gathering

Jon++, David

It's a rare day when I beat David at Magic. I felt like I drafted all over the place, but I ended up with WG with a U splash. David played BG. One of David's black cards was Eastern Paladin (tap to kill a G creature), and most of my good creatures were G, which is why I diversified to W and U. Lucky for me, David never pulled out his paladin.

In the first game, David thunmped me down to 7, but I brought out blockers, and then a flyer and a pinger. The latter two worked him down for a while. He tried to kill one of my good creatures, but I was saved by a card I had never used before and wasn't entirely sure how to use: Standard Bearer, which I had innocently thrown on a Bears early on.

In the second game, I brought out an early Bears followed by a +3/+3 enchantment, and he resigned three rounds later.

Tribune

Binyamin+, Nadine, Gili

All I know is that Binyamin won and the game went fairly quickly.

Bridge

Jon/David, Binyamin/Nadine

We played a few hands. David and Nadine don't play often, but we still had fun.

August 03, 2010

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Gili, Gili child, Binyamin, Rivka, Zvi Yehuda, David K, Avraham

Game night was moved to Tuesday again, since I was expecting to be out of town on Wednesday evening. Being summer vacation, several attendees brought their young children with them. Also, as has happened a number of times in the last year or so, I didn't take any notes, so this report will be somewhat hazy.

Nile

Binyamin, Rivka, Zvi Yehuda, Gili, Jon

Nile is a new game from Minion Games. The publisher sent me a copy to review, which you can find soon on Purple Pawn.

In the first game, we forgot to mix in the used Flood cards with the discarded cards. Binyamin still insisted that we quit after the second run through the deck. He wasn't impressed with the lack of control or meaningful decisions.

The younger kids liked the game and wanted to play again.

David 2/3/3/3/3, Jon 1/2/2/3/4, Avraham 0/3/3/3/4

I thought the game might be less random with perhaps with more meaningful decisions in three player rather than five player. It was a bit better, but not especially. This time we played an entire game through. Turns became rather repetitive, and were not too engaging. Occasionally we had to make a semi-meaningful decision between two options. It's possible that we missed some strategies.

Actually, in retrospect, none of us tried a strategy of building up many cards before playing, which might work. Possibly I would try the game one more time to try that out.

But, as I said, the game is quite random, and wasn't too engaging, so I'm not sure I will. However, the younger kids still enjoyed it.

Tribune

Binyamin+, Rivka, Zvi Yehuda, Gili, Nadine

Binyamin won. They played an easy variant.

Magic: the Gathering

Jon+, David+

David and I drafted from an uninspiring set of cards. I ended up with solid White, no Blue, but an equal number of support from the other three colors. After assessing the worth of the colors, I ended up with White/Green and a splash of Red. My mana curve was terrible, as nearly everything I had cost 4 to cast. In the two games I played, I drew perfect mana distribution, but rarely ever saw a Green card.

David played Black/Red, and, as usual, his most annoying threat was a Black pump creature.

In the first game, I brought out solid white cards and eventually hit 8 mana. David was just too slow. In the second game, I didn't get to 8 mana and I spent a lot of time tossing little guys in the way of a big Black creature. Until I got out the Droning Bureaucrats. David's Black creature didn't allow him to attack with any other creature, so all of his other guys were useless. And my Bureaucrats canceled his Black creature every round, but at the expense of using up 5 mana each round. Which put us at a standstill for several rounds.

Finally, just to relieve the tedium, I disrupted the stalemate, but it ended up with me tossing out some more fodder, him killing his Black guy so he could attack with his other creatures, and him finally overrunning me.

Naturally, my very next pick would have allowed me to kill his last guy, and possibly come back. However, by that point, he also had more things to cast and we were only about 5 cards from the end of the deck, so I might just have decked myself in the end.

Steam

Binyamin, Rivka, Zvi Yehuda, Avraham

I taught this to all of them. Binyamin prefers Age of Steam or Railroad Tycoon, and wasn't impressed with this game, a decision he made before he even started playing. For whatever reason, they all stopped the game after two rounds.

R-Eco

David 18, Jon 17, Avraham -3

Although I usually enjoy this little game - one of the better filler games - I found this session even better than usual. At several points I felt like there were some tough and important choices to make, and that I had some control over the results. This is largely due to it being a three player, rather than a five player, game.

We play with the chips all randomized and in random piles, so you never know what color or number will come up next on a pile. I chose to dump early in order to collect a few early high valued chips. David caught up fairly quickly, however. In the end, we both had dumped the same amount, but, because he was the one to end the game, he had a point more than me in chips. If it had made it to my turn, I would have taken the chip and won, instead.

Race for the Galaxy

Binyamin+, Rivka, Zvi Yehuda

Binyamin at least had played this before, though he asked a number of rules questions to me during the game. He won, of course.

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 16, 2010

Participants: Jon, Gili, Nadine, Elijah, Miriam

Welcome back to Elijah, who looked distinctly taller than the last time we'd seen him.

It's Alive

Jon 57, Gili 45, Nadine 37, Elijah 32

Gili asked to play this as a filler. I've played this hundreds of times, but there are still surprises for me in each game. In this game, I started picking up a lot of cash and then buying tiles only when the slab value equaled twice my cash value. That was my way of maximizing my points, while simultaneously keeping flexibility. My only concern is if someone else were hurrying the game along, in which case I might end up with too much cash and not enough points.

It didn't hurt that I didn't get any Villagers. But it wouldn't have made much of a difference if I had, I think. Gili's 45 include the 5 point bonus for ending the game.

Tribune

Nadine+, Elijah, Gili, Jon, Miriam

First play for Elijah, second for Miriam. Five players is a tough game with fewer opportunities to make progress each round. It's more important to have a plan, and not just pick up whatever randomly comes your way, which is what I did. It's probably what Nadine did, too, but what came her way was better than what came my way.

Mu

Elijah 88, Gili 80, Jon 63, Miriam 44, Nadine 15*

With five players looking for a light game, I finally had my chance to try Mu, a highly-rated trick taking game for 4-6 players. The game has a table for the points required to make for your bid, and a separate table for bonus points for making your bid, and a number of interesting bidding and trump rules in between.

It's fun and interesting, but it's not really all that great. In fact, it's far better with four players than it is with five, which kind of defeats the point, since there are already so many good (better) card games for four. From my limited experience of three hands, it's biggest drawback is that, unlike many other cards games, you're simply going to do well if you have a good hand and poorly if you have a bad hand. Which is not the case for Bridge, Tichu, David and Goliath, and many other games.

Nevertheless, all of us except for Nadine enjoyed ourselves well enough. Nadine gave it two hands and then bowed out for the third. Elijah racked up a lot of points in the first two games, and neither chief was able to make his bid. In the third hand, played without Nadine, Gili was chief and took nearly all the tricks.

Vegas Showdown

Jon 51, Gili 46, Miriam 44, Elijah 44, Nadine

First play for Elijah and Miriam. Elijah was falling asleep near the end of the game, but it was Nadine who caused the biggest disruption when it turned out that she had placed and benefited for several rounds from a building for which she didn't have the correct prerequisites. Miriam also had done it, but it was her first game and she did it after Nadine, so she had an excuse.

Nadine had to remove the building near the end, and never got the correct prerequisite building to re-place it, while Miriam did. Gili jumped ahead in the last round or two in both people and income, when I had been leading in them throughout the game. Which annoyed me. Somehow I still won. I think because I had a lot of good early income, and took some bonus points for Slots (and event) and cashing money in for points (twice during events).

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.

February 09, 2010

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

Game night moved to Tuesday night owing to a wedding on Wed.

Dominion + Intrigue + Seaside

Nadine 36, Gili 31, Jon 30

When Treasure Map shows up, one has to decide whether to go for it early or try something else. Last time I played with it, Chapel was also available, which made the decision easy. This time we had Warehouse (draw and discard three cards), which was nearly as nice, though not quite. Nadine and I both went for it, and she scored it well before I did. Which makes the game a little too reliant on luck.

Truth is, I should simply have bought a third one and I would have done better, so I really have myself to blame.

Gili went without it, taking Festivals, Feasts, and Mining Villages, which we also got to eventually.

Aton

Binyamin, David

Binyamin took this game home to learn and then taught it to David. Binyamin said it would take five minutes to explain and fifteen minutes to play, but it seemed like it took fifteen minutes to explain and five minutes to play. David didn't look too enthused about playing it after the explanation, but since they were waiting for us to finish our game of Dominion, they went ahead.

There is apparently some tactical depth to the game, but I didn't hear either of them raving about it. Still, I'll have to try it eventually.

Saikoro

Eitan, Emily

When they arrived, they played this twice. When I first got the game, I thought the box was excellent, but recently I've noticed that the dice don't really tumble properly if you just shake the box (like they do with Boggle). Eitan took the dice out and dumped them over the board. Still a nice game, though.

Tribune

Binyamin+, Jon, Gili

This game is deceptively simple and coddling, which is probably why Nadine likes it. Something nice is always happening to you, even if you're not winning. After a few plays, however, you realize that you need the nice things to happen to you faster than they do to the other players.

Some of your initial strategy depends on your opening hand. Gili said, at the end of the game, that her hand was particularly crappy, which is why she didn't manage to claim any factions on the first round, and subsequently lost the game. I'm not sure how accurate this is. It would have to be really, really crappy, and there must also be no way of remedying the situation on the board, which doesn't seem possible in a three player game.

Binyamin and I both started strong. I think I even may have started a little stronger, but I didn't control both factions that I needed on the second round, so I didn't get the Tribune until the last round of the game. Meanwhile, Binyamin ended up with control of five factions in round 3, which is unbelievable. Gili had ten cards for control of one of the factions on turn two, and, no surprise, she kept control of it until the end of the game.

The game ended after turn four, which seems to be about normal; it's a quick game, even with the most "difficult" requirements.

Dvonn

Abraham+, Sara

Abraham taught Dvonn to Sara when they arrived, and Abraham won narrowly.

Stone Age

Sara 140, David 116, Abraham 115, Nadine 62

While I mocked them for rolling dice, they all seemed to enjoy playing this. They ended about the same time as we ended Tribune.

Phoenicia

Jon 36, Binyamin 34, Emily 31, Eitan 26

First plays for Emily and Eitan. First win for me. This is another game that rewards multiple plays, and I'm starting to grow on it. It also looks like it cold use expansion buildings, like so many other games with special ability cards.

This is the first game where I didn't worry too much about getting early people. I think that paid off, because placing people is expensive. I got an early Dyer and then something to boost my production. The first few rounds we all started off about the same, but I eventually burst forth from the pack with my Dye House, followed closely by Binyamin. Emily also kept pace with victory points, but not with production, and so couldn't quite make the final push.

Eitan fell massively behind in production, but got both of the Shipyards, and so was poised for a late game comeback, but couldn't come back enough.

Le Havre

David, Abraham, Nadine

Last time we played, David claimed an early debt strategy would be good, and so attempted to implement that this time. But they played for two hours and only made it halfway though the game, and so gave up when it began to get late.

Nadine and David both find the game fiddly. David likes the game well enough, but I think likes Agricola more. Nadine definitely likes Agricola more, while Abraham likes Le Havre more. So it taiku.

Bridge

Binyamin, Abraham, David, Nadine, Jon

Abraham played a few hands with Binyamin against David and Nadine, and then I played a few hands with David against Binyamin and Nadine.

February 03, 2010

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

Stormy weather. Mace was going to be in Tel Aviv, but came to play instead.

Tribune

Nadine+, Bill, Mace, Gili

First play for Mace, possibly first play for Bill. I don't know what scenario they played. Bill was a close second.

Le Havre

David 145, Jon 113, Abraham 106

It's always nice when there are more players, since I have a better chance of getting out games that I love but some others don't. Abraham likes Le Havre, too, and this was David's first play.

It's a strange game to teach, what with building and buying and the strange and difficult procedure involved in buying ships. It's an awesome game, however, and we've still only played "the quick" way, without special buildings. I think I'm finally ready to graduate to those.

One mechanic that kind of bothers me is the way that someone can "hog" a space if they take resources; I think it would be nice if they had to remove their piece from the building they currently occupy to do that. Maybe that's actually the rule and I missed it.

David was thoroughly confused as the game started, but by the end he was getting the hang of it. So much so, that he was the first of our group to realize that one should actively NOT take food early game and instead take debt. This saves actions for you to generate lots of food in later parts of the game. None of us did this, but it seems sound in theory.

And of course he won. Abraham always seems to be doing well early game, but then is totally out of sync later on. I plod along merrily, but never seem to get a ship, which I should probably do, if only for the food reduction. David seemed to be a bit behind, but he gained massive energy and steel late in the game, bought the big luxury liner and another steel ship and shipped steel.

Pillars of the Earth + expansion

Gili, Mace, Nadine, Bill

Nadine writes: Gili won, Mace was second, first play for him, second play for Bill. [Ed: First play of the expansion for everyone]

The expansion seems to make it harder, or maybe it's just being less familiar with what can happen, such as bad events and that some craftperson/exchange cards being out of the game. Bill could look at the events but wasn't able to avoid the last one because Gili went there before his guy was drawn.

I had a card that let me select the initial two cards for sale, so I took the first player position a lot which hurt Bill because I started on his turn where he would have been first. I couldn't use that ability in the last round. Mace did well too with a lot cube production.

Apparently there was one card which prevented all special ability cards, and it was played in the last round. It made the game a bit anti-climactic.

Magic: the Gathering

David++, Jon

David and I drafted as usual from random cards acquired in the last few years. I remarked on the lack of synergy as we were drafting, but in the end I somehow acquired around ten Kithkin, at least one of which gained +1/+1 for each Kithkin that attacked.

In fact, as I drafted, I specifically chose cards that gave bonuses for various reasons. I had an equipment that gave +x/+x for each attacking creature, and another creature that gained +2/+2 if a creature was brought into play this round. So while my deck looked small, it had some buildup potential.

That's what happened in game 2. On turn 5 or 6, I attacked with five creatures, some of which were pumped to +8/+8. I won.

Unfortunately, I lost the other two, as usual. The first game was very close. David had a champion creature out, +7/+7 with some added boosters to become +9/+9. I had him within 2 points, but finally ran out of defenses as I drew a slew of lands. In the third game, my deck didn't have synergy, and he flew over me with a pumped creature several times.

Still fun.

January 13, 2010

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

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

Dominion / Intrigue / Seaside

Nadine 36, Jon 31, David, Gili

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

Binyamin 19, Ben 18, Abraham 17

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

Homesteaders

Jon 65, Gili 48, Eitan 43

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Le Havre

Binyamin 137, Abraham 121, Emily 99

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

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

Tribune

Ben 29, David 26, Nadine, Bill, Shirley

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

Saikoro

Jon+, Eitan

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

Bridge

Jon/Nadine, Ben/David/Binyamin

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

Eitan looked on and tried to learn.

January 06, 2010

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Ben, Binyamin, Gili, Abraham

Welcome back Ben. I wanted to play Homesteaders, but once again didn't get it to the table.

Tribune

Binyamin, Ben, Gili, Nadine

First play for all but Nadine. I taught them. The game is pretty straightforward when you play it, but, like Ra, each little piece has its own set of rules. As such, they appeared to be overwhelmed. Even though, all the rules and exceptions are brilliantly printed in the right location on all the game components.

Often, players forget that they can get this benefit OR that benefit. Often, they forget that they can do this thing ONLY if they also have that things. In this game, they all forgot about the chariot bidding for most of the game.

As a result of the last mistake, Ben ended up losing by a coin or two; if they had remembered, he would have won, fairly handily I hear. Instead, Binyamin won. Though he thought it was a bit confusing, he enjoyed it

Dominion/Intrigue/Seaside

Jon 66, Abraham 50

Meanwhile, Abraham and I played with kingdoms from all three sets. This was only my second play of Seaside, and third of Intrigue.

Our first set had no bonus actions at all. What it had, instead, was Chapel and Treasure Map, which are a freakingly deadly combination. In four or five rounds, my hand was stripped to nothing but four Golds and a Copper or two.

Abraham tried the same strategy, but took longer to get the second Treasure Map, and didn't get the Treasure Map combo until several rounds later. He took Smugglers, however, and matched many of the cards and points I drew. Not enough.

Jon 27, Abraham 27

Our second mix was more interesting, perhaps. Bonus actions for Upgrade and Treasury, the latter of which I though was pretty nifty, as the gold they provide essentially continues to accumulate until you buy victory points. We also had Throne Room to turn these into double actions. None of the cards cost less than 4.

Abraham Upgraded away all of his Coppers, and I took Thief to try to rob him of his higher valued treasures, but Throne Room / Thief several times in succession only managed to nab one Gold and one Silver. Pathetic thieves. We both carefully cycled through our entire deck each round, and ended in a tie.

Dvonn

Jon+, Abraham

First play for Abraham, who had played Yinsh once. Yinsh is more "fun", but I think Dvonn is the best game in the series (I only played Tzaar once, however, and I loved it as well). Abraham also appreciated it. We don't play this game enough.

Phoenicia

Abraham 38, Ben 32, Binyamin, Jon, Nadine

Since Gili left, we were able to play a five-person game. It was nice to bring out a new game for a second play. Hopefully it will see many more. First play for Ben and Binyamin.

I think we all liked it, although I once again did very poorly. It is possible to partially catch up during the game, but not significantly enough to affect the eventual outcome, which is a tad frustrating. Abraham was pretty much leading by mid-game, and the outcome was forgone.

I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, yet, but I suspect that I'm making very bad decisions as to the relative value of different paths of progression. Last time, Abraham was producing poorly, but had many discounts and came in one point away from winning. In that game, I produced well, but had to throw out some items due to lack of storage space. This time, I had storage space, was producing poorly and had some discounts, but I wasn't really in contention. It didn't help having additional competition (five players) for the items I needed.

December 09, 2009

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

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

Alice and Wonderland Parade

Gili 11, David 13, Elijah, Nadine

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

Dominion: Intrigue

Nadine 45ish, Gili 33ish, Elijah 32ish

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

Magic: the Gathering

David+, Jon

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

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

Homesteaders

Nadine, David, Elijah, Gili

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

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

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

Tribune

Eitan+ 39, Jon+ 36, Emily, Ksenia

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

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

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

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

Oh well. First game is for learning.