Chanukah Games Day

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

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

Highland Clans

Gili 39, Mace 34, Emily 34, Eitan 33

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

El Grande

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

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

Egizia

Emily 90, Mace 82, Gili 76, Eitan 73

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

Princes of Florence

Nadine 62, Kate 60, Eszter 56, Moshe 49

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

Louis XIV

Mace 59,Gili 51, Maor 48

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

Year of the Dragon

Nadine 114, Kate 98, Moshe 84

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

The kids played Clue and Munchkin.

May 18, 2011

Participants: Jon, David K, Nadine, Zachary, Eliezer

I lost my notes, again. I picked up David and brought him home with me. While waiting for others to show up, David created a pile of Magic card for us to draft from later in the evening.

Glory to Rome

Nadine 15, Eliezer 15, David 10, Zachary 9, Jon 9

First game for Zachary, second game for David and Eliezer. I started with a simple brown building and then began a Catacombs, on the theory that a partially built Catacombs would give me the flexibility to end the game when I wanted and protect me from Forums. It didn't work for me, and I didn't complete any other building by the end of the game (which ended with David's Catacombs). I lost out on the utility that other buildings could have supplied in the meantime.

I'm not sure that the strategy was entirely bad; I may have been unlucky. By the way, my other six points came from a single stashed purple card and the bonus for most purple cards.

Nadine built an early killer combo: two brown clients, the building that doubles her client abilities, and the building that increases her hand size to 9. Each round she drew back up to 9 cards, and on each brown action she started AND completed two or three buildings.

All her points were in buildings.

Eliezer built the second most amount of buildings, and also had six points from a stashed blue card and the blue bonus. David was almost as far behind as I was, and he completed Catacombs to put us out of our misery.

Sticheln

Eliezer, Zachary, Nadine

Zach didn't have much more time, so Eliezer taught Nadine and him a round of this game. Meanwhile, David and I drafted our Magic decks.

Year of the Dragon

Nadine 100something, David around 20 points behind, Eliezer, Jon

First play for Eliezer. I went in to this game not a fan of the game, and I ended even less of a fan; I'll be dropping it a point on my ranking. It's not that I don't see that there is strategy to work out, which David and Nadine have worked out better than I have. It's that the entire thing bores me. I don't really know why. It's just not compelling. Notre Dame, to which this game has been compared but is a less punishing game, doesn't bother me as much, and compels me slightly more (slightly).

David took a commanding early lead on the turn order track and stayed there the entire game, though I cam close enough to worry him occasionally. He took strong books, earning 9 points a pop during the last few rounds. However, he eventually lost all of his guys on the last round. Nadine built out to four or five huts, took a first round double dragon, and an early princess. She kept six guys and nine buddha points.

I managed to keep eight guys in four huts and a fourth round single dragon and a sixth round princess. No buddhas.

Magic: The Gathering

Jon++, David+

This was the second time in a row that I've beaten David. He won the first game handily and I was sure that my deck wasn't going to do much, even though it didn't look too bad: black with splashes of red and white, 15 creatures, creature kill cards, and the flagbearer enchantment. The latter is a pretty unassuming card that worked wonders when I brought it out, just like it did the last time I played with it. The enchantment redirects any targeted spell or ability cast by the opponent onto the enchanted creature.

I won the second game with some selective creature kill, followed by a standoff and a Last Ditch Effort, and the third after a long battle, followed by sacrificing some Clerics (shapeshifters, actually) each netting 2 loss of life to him and 2 gain for me.

October 20, 2010

Participants: Jon, Joey, Nadine, Gili, Mace, Elijah

Joey is a student who dropped by for his first visit.

Nile

Gili 0/1/2/2/3, Joey 0/1/1/2/2, Nadine 0/0/*/*/*, Elijah 0/0/*/*/*, Jon 0/0/0/0/1

We didn't particularly like this game the last time that we played it, but I wanted to give it another go. Actually, someone recommended that I try it two-player, but somehow we ended up playing it with five players. I was expecting total chaos.

I read the rules carefully to ensure that we were playing correctly, and then after a few rounds I realized that we were playing incorrectly, so for the last two-thirds of the game I'm fairly confident we played it correctly. And to our surprise, we actually liked the game, a little.

I wouldn't actually go so far as to say that we liked it a lot. The game is still wayyyy too random and chaotic. And I think, with experience, you will begin to find something strategic to do in a two or three player game. I could tell that I made a mistake or two in my playing, but still. Not nearly enough that I deserved my pathetic score. I guess we'll try it again.

Year of the Dragon

Mace 101, Nadine 90, Gili 85

First play for Mace. Nadine was heard to complain about the painfulness of the decisions, which she actually likes.

Agricola

Joey 46, Elijah 33, Jon 31

I was expecting a greater gap between mine and Elijah's scores, but he had no bonus points in cards.

Joey insisted that we draft out first picks (8 of each, drop the last 1), which added a good fifteen minutes onto the game play. And I still managed to pick crap. Worst, the occupations and improvements that I actually managed to play were unsynergistic, while Joey's and Elijah's were. Elijah had a combo that gave him 4 wheat and a vegetable whenever he took the wheat action.

And Joey sitting on my right made it his business to block whatever I wanted at every move. Knowing that I had no hope of winning, I simply made it my goal to score at least 20 points.

Antike

Jon 9, Joey 7, Elijah 7

I suggested this. First play for Joey. I made it clear at the beginning, however, that points were what mattered, not expansion.

The game was closer than many others that I've played. I started with gold, ELijah started with iron, and Joey with marble. Elijah kept pace with me on the Know How track, and then Joey built some temples and advanced massively on the track as well. Unfortunately, that was after he left a temple open for me to sack.

After sacking the temple, which put me at 5 points, I pretty much knew from where my remaining 4 points were coming. Elijah saw one of them and convinced Joey to sack a few of my cities to delay me a few rounds, but the end was inevitable.

It's Alive

Elijah 50, Jon 44, Joey 43

I think this was the first play for Joey. I was doing fine with my money while the others spent theirs quickly. But somehow I lost most of my money just about when mid-game turned to end-game, and with it went most of my points.

I suggested the game, because I hadn't played it in a while. After playing, I have to say that I still love it.

Dominion/Intrigue/Seaside

Jon 46, Joey 39, Elijah 24

Kingdoms: Cellar, Chancellor, Woodcutter, Militia, Remodel, Thief, Great Hall, Torturer, Harem, Black Market

As usual I ended up with half or more of the cards from the main set. I still don't know why, since I pick them randomly.

Joey and I took early Black Markets. He started collecting Golds before me, and then had three Provinces before either Elijah or me had any. I began to draw some Great Halls, Harems, and Golds, and Remodeled two Golds into Provinces. Then I played Thief and took one of Elijah's Harems. I also took several Duchys, sometimes two in one turn.

Vegas Showdown

Mace 79, Gili 71, Nadine 66

First play for Mace. Nadine suggested it.

March 03, 2010

Participants: Nadine, Gili, Emily

This is the second of three game nights that I'm away in the US. Nadine hosted; take it away, Nadine:

An efficient, calm and fun session - two meaty games in less that two and a
half hours.

Year of the Dragon

Emily+, Nadine, Gili

Turn order was Emily, Nadine, Gili most of the game. Final results were
Emily, Nadine, Gili. Emily did a good job, she won by 7 points and was the
only one to have one firecracker during the whole game.

Princes of Florence

Nadine 125, Emily 109, Gili 101

Gili said she didn't understand how I did it, I said I didn't either. I had
the most works played, 6 vs. 5, I didn't get any Bonus cards and had all 3
freedoms, 2 jesters, Emily had 3 and one freedom. We all got best work at
least twice. I had two Prestige cards vs. 1, and Gili's gave her no points,
so that's partly luck, and I started with two cards with the same building
and bought the third. We didn't bid much against each other, everything
except jesters mostly went for 200.

Ed Note: Apparently they messed up the scoring, using $1 = 1 point, instead of $1 = 1/2 point.

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

October 28, 2009

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Bill, Shirley, Gili, Emily, Eitan, Abraham, Sarah, Ksenia

We have new steady regulars, which is great as it keeps game night lively and provides players with a choice of what games to play. Ksenia is a visiting student from Poland who will be staying with us until mid-December, at least. She has no gaming background, but was excited to try out games night and had a great time. Welcome aboard.

Year of the Dragon

Nadine 102, Bill 94, Shirley 92, Gili 90, 82 Eitan

First plays for Bill and Shirley. Shirley was able to translate the Chinese symbols on the board, and they apparently don't have much to do with the game.

They started with this game, instead of the usual filler, and it took them three hours. Nadine won, as usual. Eitan already liked the game, and Shirley really liked it. So much so, that they all sat around for another half hour discussing the game.

Dominion

Jon 29, Emily 24

I stayed away from YotD, so I was able to play Dominion with Emily when she and Eitan arrived (Eitan preferred to join YotD as it was just about to start).

We pulled a dream set of cards: Chapel, Moat, Villagers, Spy, Moneylender, Bureaucrat, Throne Room, Market, Festival, and Mine. I took Spy/Chapel, she took Moneylender/Chapel.

It took a while to get to 5, but then it was steady progression. Emily Chapel'd all of her Estates, while I only dropped 2 of them. That left me at a one point advantage. We'll get back to that later.

Heh. She managed to get 2 Provinces before I got any, which made me depressed. Then we both got one, leaving me down, 3 to 1. But then I was able to get 2 Provinces and a Duchy. 3.5 to 3. We each both got one more Province, me getting the last one and pulling an additional Estate just for kicks.

Festivals are lovely, but they have to be combined with card drawing ability or they just sit there. Of course, trashing all your Estates and Coppers in favor of Golds also doesn't hurt.

Settlers of Catan

Jon 10, Abraham 8, Ksenia 7, Emily 5

The gateway game, and first play for Ksenia. She liked it, I'm happy to say. Once again I started off a little behind, but soon the numbers began to swing my way. I was the only one who had to dump to the robber during the game, and I did it three times. Ksenia and Emily did a little jockeying for Longest Road, while Abe and I built up cities. I won with a Largest Army and then my fourth city.

It's Alive

Ksenia 47, Jon 43, Abraham 41, Emily 33

Scores are approximate, but in order. First play for Ksenia, and she liked it too (though not as much as Settlers). I'm STILL finding new ways to think about the money and point aspects of the game. Great game.

Santiago

Abraham 99, Jon 97, Sarah 79, Ksenia 58, Emily 57

For some odd reason, the old-timers don't like to play this game with me, which boggles me, as I think it's incredibly elegant and fun. Luckily I had four players who had never played it before, and I already knew that Abe would like it (and probably win). it's also new player friendly. So I got another chance to play.

Five players is the toughest scenario, of course, but even so, ours was pretty amiable. Very little land dried up completely until the last round of the game.

One of the interesting things about the game is that it's not enough to play a round by maximizing your point score for that round only. You have to consider how many extra points you can get by taking a smaller amount this round in anticipation of tiles that will give you a really big boost in some future round.

Also, you have to weigh the points you will get if you take tile A and opp takes tile B, and the reverse; not only what you will get with your own placement.

Four of the five crops had some contiguity, while the fifth one only sprouted between the fields, so to speak. I made a bonehead move on the seventh round, missing an already watered spot on the board and therefore not bidding high enough to secure it for myself. That was a 10 point loss, I believe.

But the game came down to the end, where Queenmaker Emily got to decide whether my crops or Abe's would be watered. Abe won out, and he won by 2 points.

October 02, 2009

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

Usually I skip game night before a Games Day, because it's also a few days before holiday. But I figured, what the heck? I didn't take notes, so this will be a poor session report.

Geschenkt

Gili 23, Nadine, Jon

Gili toasted us.

Gili+, Nadine, Jon, Eitan, Emily

First play for Emily and Eitan. I think Gili toasted us again, but this time Eitan and Nadine didn't show too poorly.

Hacienda

Jon 164, Bill 161, Gili 130something

First play for Bill, second for Gili and me. I took this out once a while ago, and no one wanted to play it again, not because it was Bad, but because it had a poor mechanic or two and wasn't great. I thought it was ok, though. So I wanted to take it out at least one more time, to see if we were keeping or trading it.

In the end, it's got a poor mechanic or two (but not that poor) and it wasn't great. One bad mechanic is the "complete the turn" mechanic, which works well in non-interactive games, such as race games, but doesn't work well in area control or otherwise interactive games. It induces a fear for the first player to end the round, since everyone else will have a chance after him, while the last player can always decide whether or when to end the round.

I;m also not thrilled about games where the players have the ability to speed up the game end with dumb plays, too.

Other than those things, the game is good, a lot like Through the Desert actually. Connect to your water holes (markets), create large groups, score in a variety of ways. It's enjoyable enough, just like TtD is (TtD doesn't have the drawbacks, though, but it's a bit more serene).

In our game, I was first player. They each built huge blocks of one territory, raking in cash and big bonus points. I built a bunch of small territories, hoping for the cascading bonus, which I got. I wasn't sure it would be enough to beat them out in the end, however. I was actually behind on the first scoring round by a few points.

When there was only one card left to draw in the animal deck at the end of the second round, everything just went into a holding pattern. I couldn't afford to end the game, and Gili took as much time as necessary to eke out more points (hoping to be more than we got in the process). Finally, she ended the game out of boredom (never a good sign).

Year of the Dragon

Nadine 97, Eitan+, Abraham-, Emily

First play for Eitan and Emily, second perhaps for Abraham. Nadine as usual swooped to victory with final scoring of many people and buddhas. Eitan's last play was to move forward on the timing track, having nothing else to do. It ended up giving him the tie lead over Abraham.

It's Alive

Eitan+, Abraham, Nadine, Emily

First play for Emily and Eitan. Eitan finished his board first. Abraham ended up with massive amounts of cash, but few points.

At the end of the night, Nadine also taught Abraham how to play Robo Rally.

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.

January 7, 2009

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

I lost my notes.

Trias

Binyamin 26, Jon 24, Nadine 20

I simply love this game. Honestly, I was expecting to thing that it was an ok filler. But it's elegant mechanics and chaotic patterns are exactly my style. In the first game you have no idea what you're doing and why, but it soon begins to come clear.

Unfortunately, everyone else I've played it with at the group doesn't feel the same way. Especially, there are some people who take a very long time to take their turns, ala Carcassonne. Nadine is one such person. She also claims that it's simply not her style of game, being too spacial (yet somehow, she always seems to beat us at El Grande).

First play for Binyamin, who is especially irked when other people take a long time to play. I would like to play it 2-player a couple of times.

Jambo

Avraham+, Gili

Gili taught Avraham. The Kosmos two-player series is Gili's type of game; I think they're ok filler games. They didn't have time to finish, but agreed that Avraham was probably winning.

Antike

Jon 9, Avraham 8, Binyamin 7

My third game of Antike, and another game that I simply love a whole lot more than I expected to. Possibly it's because I'm playing with not too aggressive players; if I played with war-gamers I might feel differently. As for now, the game seems to be perfectly balanced, where the victory mechanics don't favor aggression over non-aggression, or vice versa.

Binyamin's first play, Avraham's second. I decided to try setting the victory condition to one less than the book indicates. It does make a difference. That one extra point would have dragged the game on into a lot more forced combat situations and probably close to another hour. We finished our game in under 2 hours.

I started with gold and the first Know-How, but Binyamin quickly stifled my hopes of getting a landslide of those. I played Arabia, and pretty much had my side of the board to myself for most of the game. Just once, Avraham who played Greece conquered one of my outlying cities in the south. And I won the game with a quick unexpected strike to destroy one of Binyamin's temples in the north.

Binyamin started with two legions and expanded into 12 or 13 cities as his first several rounds. He then hit up against Avraham who attacked a number of his cities. He then concentrated on acquiring the rest of the Know-hows (he got 6, I think) and building temples. But he was too slow to win. Avraham also expanded early, but he spent too much time on expansion, building no temples and achieving no points through know-hows. He was still poised to win the game two turns after me.

Year of the Dragon

David 74, Nadine 55, Gili 45

A favorite of all three of them, they consider it a tighter and less random version of Notre Dame.

Traders of Carthage

Avraham 15, Jon 14, Binyamin 12

Avraham taught this game to both Binyamin and me. It's a light filler game. To me, it seemed to fit into nearly the same space as R-Eco, with its point in four goods, piles of cards that appear and disappear, and low scoring. It's also fairly chaotic and low on the planning side, with just enough planning to make you feel that you have some relevant decisions to make. This is probably exacerbated in a four-player game, and lessened in a two-player game, like all similar games with chaos.

In our game, I probably should have one but I made two mistakes. The first one cost me a card. The second one gave Binyamin the shipment and lost me several cards and point opportunities. But Binyamin didn't quite grasp the right plays. Between the two of us, we let Avraham take a close but smooth victory.

Bridge

Jon/David 990, Binyamin/Avraham+Nadine 0

Avraham hasn't played this (he's played online? read the rules?), so he teamed up with Nadine to play one position with Binyamin as partner. I ended up with all the points over four hands. I played the first three hands, and Avraham insisted on stealing the last hand, but went down two.

November 19, 2008

Participants: Nadine, Gili, David K

Still a small group of good friends.

Trias

Jon 21, Gili 17, David 16, Nadine 15

We spent some time looking at the new games, wondering which one to learn on the fly, before I remembered that I kind of learned the rules to this already. Also, it would be a quick game. Or, it should be a quick game.

Trias is a lovely little game of drifting tiles and migrating dinosaur herds. There is nearly no luck, but a small level of chaos, as the other players will make moves that derail your plans.

The drifting tile mechanism is simply awesome. Islands are created, reconnect, split, and so on in lovely patterns, in ways that give fantastic opportunities for tactical play. Elegant. There is also ample room for strategy, as you have to decide whether to form your own areas or infringe on others. Proper first placement is critical for this.

Like Dvonn, on first play the beginning of the game seems very random. As the game went on, and I "got it", I can see now how little randomness there really is. Unfortunately, my fellow game players either didn't "get it", or didn't find it very interesting. They complained throughout the game and were happy to see it end.

I thought it was excellent, as you can tell.

David started spreading out before everyone else, which made me realize how limited my areas of control were. So, rather than reproducing like everyone else was, I spread out. As a result, I had babies left in my supply for most of the game, while the others ran out. That's when we realized the tactical opportunities to kill off your babies, so you have more to place. But only one player actually managed to do that.

We had an amazingly large island at one point, but it eventually split. Even so, I won the game by controlling a land mass of 10 hexes.

The game may be even more fun if you add special genes like the ones in Evo and Primordial Soup.

Year of the Dragon

Nadine 103, Gili 102, David 102, Jon 82

I would like to say that YotD is kind of a dull game once you realize that you have no chance of winning, which was the fact in my case. However, Nadine and Gili also thought they had no chance of winning, as David took strong books and jumped over 20 points ahead by the last round. We were all resigned to his victory.

In particular, I knew I had no chance of catching up, as I had taken a similar strategy of "books", but David was always going before me, and, though I could pay to take books once in a while, I couldn't catch up.

The board layout didn't help with this, as the plague was the second to last event, so I had to keep the stupid medicine men the whole game. And the tax collection was last, so using my last bit of money for books meant sacrificing people; I did it anyway, netting a few more points than I lost.

But Nadine and Gili played different strategies, ending the game with 18 people points and 15 buddha points in Gili's case, and twenty people points and 12 buddha points in Nadine's case. David ended with only a single person.

The tallies were then David at 102, Gili and Nadine at 100. Then Nadine and Gili cashed in their final chips and money, and Nadine eked out the victory. A rousing finish for them. But not for me.

Race for the Galaxy

David 41, Nadine 40, Jon 38

This game somewhat annoyed me with its ability to run out with quick building by one player. I decided to simply let that be and play with that, anyway. Once I accepted it, the game was a little more enjoyable, because I wasn't playing against the nature of the game, but with it.

As a result, I didn't score too badly. I had 3 6-cost buildings out, although they each only gave me around 4 points. David was able to consume twice for 10 points each time. Nadine was close behind. Luckily, she didn't get her "Brown strategy" going.

All of us are still convinced that the Military strategy can't really compete.

October 05, 2008

Participants: Jon, Elijah, Nadine, Gili, Avraham, Tal, Rachel

A game night on Sunday to avoid all the holidays.

Reels and Deals

Jon/Avraham 100, Gili 84, Tal 80, Nadine 66, Elijah 55

Avraham came in the middle and joined me. First play for Gili and Elijah. Nadine would like to say that she now believes that luck so determines the game that she has no desire to play it again. Despite it's faults, I still like it, as did Gili and Avraham.

Nadine and Avraham both believe that a much better game could be made using the cards. The biggest problem is the end game condition, which is just bad. I haven't got a solution to that. As for the luck of the draw, particularly with the scripts and finding the needed talent to fill them, we all feel that a common pool and auctioning them off would make for a better game.

In our game, Elijah only drew small scripts, and though he finished two, they didn't do him much good. Gili got frustrated a number of times, but still ended in second place with her cash reserves, which made her feel better. We would have beaten her by only one point, but gained an entirely unnecessary additional 15 point bonus for finishing the game.

Cosmic Encounter

Jon+, Elijah, Avraham

First play for Avraham. We played single revealed powers. I played Sorceror, Avraham played Filth, and Elijah played Mutant.

It was a very quick game. They couldn't dump their hands, so I was able to walk through to five bases while they couldn't draw new cards to stop me. I had additional help from the Wild Queue, which let me change the cards that Elijah drew as Mutant, and Wild Filth which let me prepare for my fifth base in Avraham's system, if necessary (which it wasn't).

Year of the Dragon

Jon 100, Nadine 99, Gili 91

I played this simultaneously with Cosmic Encounter. Second play for Gili. I usually lose to Nadine by one point in the end point scoring of Buddhas and remaining people, but somehow managed to win by one point this time. Nadine made one mistake which cost her a Lady, so that was probably it.

I tend to play with only three house at two levels each, six figures, two dragons, one or two late Ladies, and strong book usage in the last several rounds. I also take one early firecracker, and as little as I can of rice, money, and medicine.

Mr Jack

Avraham (Detective)+, Elijah (Criminal)

First play for both of them. Elijah managed to survive until the beginning of the seventh round. Both really enjoyed it.

Geschenkt

Nadine+, Jon, Gili, Elijah, Avraham

Jon+, Nadine, Gili, Elijah, Avraham

Elijah only had a small amount of time, so we played this. First play for Avraham, who liked it a lot. We all did, except Nadine thinks it's only so-so. I lost the first game, and won the second game, by un/lucky draws on the last card.

Puerto Rico

Jon 61, Nadine 51, Rachel 50, Avraham 50

We roped Rachel into playing this at the end of the evening. First play for Avraham with alternate buildings.

Rachel and Avraham had the Harbors, and Avraham had an early coffee monopoly and a Discretionary Hold, but somehow didn't get them all to work well together. Nadine and I had Factories. I could see early on that I was going to lose the shipping war after I chose Factory instead of Harbor, which Rachel chose right after me. Later on I chose a coffee to make a full five goods, instead of a Discretionary Hold to eke a few more VPs.

Turns out to have been the right move, as I ended the game with three big buildings. I had only 16 shipping to Nadine's 25, Rachel's 28, and Avraham's 35, but I had 26 building points and 19 bonus building points, while Nadine had 20/6, Rachel 15/7, and Avraham 15/0.

An interesting game, as usual.

August 19, 2008

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Elijah, Zack, Gili, Hillel, Avraham, David K, Saarya

Game night was a day early, owing to a conference I'm attending tomorrow night. We didn't have a chance to test my prototype. Zack attended last year, but his family went back to the states. He's here for a few weeks, but tonight will be his only game group appearance. Elijah also returned after a long absence.

Year of the Dragon

Nadine 101, Elijah 97, Hillel 92, Zack 83

First game for all but Nadine, who had to explain it a few times as players slowly arrived at the club and needed to hear the explanation from the beginning.

Nadine writes: Zack lost points due to getting the least explanation due to coming late. I only won because no one [else] had played before.

Caylus

Jon/David 84, Avraham 74, Gili 58

We played about half the game and then I got up to let David finish my position when he arrived. I'm not thrilled about the game anyway.

I gave David an ok but not thrillingly good position. He promptly made a mistake in his inherited position and lost ground. And yet, he still won the game. Go figure. This was Avraham's first play and he underestimated the importance of Green/Blue buildings. Gili missed out on the second and third castle scoring (she had one house in the last castle section; none in the second).

Cosmic Encounter

Elijah+, Saarya+, Hillel, Nadine

Hillel's first play. All of them were a little rusty and came to me with rules questions. Even so, they made several mistakes, throwing into question the game's results. For instance, they played the Vacuum as the one who selects which tokens the other player loses, which is deadly. Elijah and Saarya won on a joint comp/comp.

Tichu

Jon/Avraham 1025, David/Nadine 875

I opened with a Grand Tichu, which I made, and we both went out first to boot. A 400 point lead. I called and made Tichu again. Then David began to call Grand Tichu and Tichu, and after several rounds, we were only ahead 60 points. I won the last game with a Tichu, and that settled it.

In every hand, David and I had our cards down first; of course, being Avraham's first play, and Nadine dividing some attention in the first few hands with Cosmic, this was understandable. In nearly every hand, either David or I called Tichu or Grand Tichu; Avraham and Nadine never called it. And in nearly every hand, David and I went out first, leaving Nadine and Avraham to play for third. Too bad David and I weren't teammates.

David made a Tichu where both Avraham and Nadine had bombs and he didn't. His Grand Tichu was also helped by getting passed cards to complete both a bomb and an inside eight card straight. I had a single bomb, on the last hand, which I broke up to play a 10 card straight, followed by a three of a kind. I was left with a 9. David eventually played an 8, letting me go out.

August 6, 2008

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Tal, David K

Small game night again, perhaps because it's the nine days.

Scrabble

Jon, Nadine, Tal

We knew David was on the way, so we played some casual Scrabble for a while, without keeping score. When you play without keeping score, the board opens up tremendously, as point-worthless but pretty six letter words are placed with impunity. My first word was a seven letter word, actually.

Year of the Dragon

David 109, Jon 102, Nadine 91

Once again I was doing ok throughout most of the game, and once again I lost by a few points at the end. Which only goes to show that my strategy is not sound.

I'm ok with the game, and I'm willing to play, but it doesn't thrill me. For some reason, Notre Dame, to which this game has been compared, feels a little more fun to me, even though this game offers slightly more control. I think it's because Notre Dame offers actual areas to control and routes to travel.

David chose early Buddhas and managed to stay well ahead on the turn order track the entire game, while Nadine stayed well in the back. Scores reflect this.

Tigris and Euphrates

Jon 8/9/9/9, David 3/3/4/5, Nadine 3/3/4/5

A bit of a slaughter as you can see, and a fairly quick game. David started in the middle, I started on the east, and Nadine in the north west.

Near the beginning of the game, David put down two green tiles in his kingdom, I had three greens and three blacks in my hand, so I put down the two blacks. I decided to lure him into a trap by not putting down ANY greens in the hopes that he would attack me. Sure enough, he attacked me when his kingdom had four greens and mine had none. I tossed my four green tiles, and that ended that.

The game descended to another all out external conflict when there were only three treasures left on the board. I prepared as best I could for the conflict, but I got very very very lucky, not only in terms of what I drew, but in terms of how the conflict actually unfolded.

David triggered the conflict in an act of desperation. Because of how he created the conflict, there were three conflicts, in red, green, and black. And because of how he created the conflict, I needed EXACTLY one green, three black, and two red tiles to win all three conflicts. And I had EXACTLY one green, three black, and two red tiles. And to top it off, I could still get the last treasure on my next turn.

I figure I have used up my luck for the rest of the year.

Boggle

Jon, David, Nadine.

We played one round of Boggle while waiting for Tal to join us for Tichu. I think I eked out a small victory.

Tichu

David/Nadine 1000+, Jon/Tal 205+

In the first hand, it looked like my luck was still around. David played three consecutive pairs and I was able to top it. Then Nadine played a straight and I was able to top it. But to no avail. They both went out first.

In another round, I made it down to my last card, but it was a 2. Tal was already out, and David on my right knew I had the 2, because he passed it to me. So he led a 2, and passed everything that Nadine on my left played. In this way, Nadine went out, and then control passed to David, and he went out.

By the penultimate round, Tal and I were losing 5 to 995. I called and made a Grand Tichu (despite not having a bomb and David having one), but it didn't matter much.

July 30, 2008

Participants: Nadine, Jon, Binyamin, Zvi Yehuda, Amir, Hillel, Yitzchak

Last minute change of plans forced the game night to Nadine's house. Amir came for a first visit, although he's moving to Modiin so won't be back much. Hillel has come once or twice before. Yitzchak also won't be coming back much more, as he's now engaged again (mazal tov) and moving to Ramat Beit Shemesh.

Year of the Dragon

Nadine 108, Jon 107, Amir

I don't remember the exact scores. Nadine was convinced I was going to win. I felt like I was doing ok, but I was severely behind in end-scoring points, and I figured Nadine would catch up to me. Lo and behold, she did, and won the game by one point.

YotD is a good game, but it's pretty balanced and mechanics-oriented. Constantly losing people makes for a nice tension element. In our game, I opened with the Double Dragon, which I'm not sure is the best opening move, actually. Later on I used the triple book a few times, ignoring the ladies and the builders. Nadine and Amir took early double dragons as well, and some ladies. Nadine's ending monks were what did me in.

Texas Hold'Em

Binyamin, Jon, Zvi Yehuda, Hillel

Zvi Yehuda wanted to play this, and Binyamin pretty much cleaned up. We played with a 1 token ante and a 5 token maximum bet for each hand (after which all cards were simply revealed). Z"Y bet high a few times in weird ways. I simply pulled crappy cards. I'm not a big fan of this type of poker, anyway.

Hillel took over for me when he came, as I was playing this and YotD at the same time.

Metropolys

Binyamin, Zvi Yehuda, Hillel

This is a new game from Ystari which Binyamin brought. I didn't see much of it. Binyamin claims it's a deeper version of Mykerinos.

Alexander the Great

Binyamin, Zvi Yehuda, Nadine, Jon

This is another new game which Binyamin brought. It's a hidden resource allocation / area control game with somewhat vicious mechanics (tied players receive nothing, first player loses resources equal to 1 + the second player's resources).

I played this simultaneously with Princes of Florence, so this may be why I found the game wholly uninteresting. In an hour, we progressed through 2 of 6 epochs. The decisions were very heavy calculations - not based on high math, but based on wrangling the mechanics to benefit you: "If I go here, I cause a tie, which means no one loses anything, so when I go here and lose, she'll lose resources, so that I can go here and win, and we'll both gain 3 points overall."

It felt excrutiating to me, but overall I think it's probably a good game. There's tons of strategy and tactics, and little in the way of luck, so many of my group will probably like it. You have to learn the patterns to enjoy it.

We abandoned the game after the second epoch, with Binyamin in the lead.

Princes of Florence

Yitzchak 58, Jon 57, Hillel, Amir

First time plays for Amir and Hillel. PoF remains an excellent game, but my luck remained poor. I thought I played an excellent game. I picked up 2nd and 3rd jesters on the last two round at dirt cheap prices, and won best work in both rounds. The third jester boosted a bonus card, and secured me my prestige card (6 points).

For all that, Yitzchak had two prestige cards worth a total of 15 points, and ended up beating me by one point. Sometimes I don't know why I bother.

Both the newbies played very well, although they both had a bunch of builders and lost (by less than 10 points), so there you go.

Bridge

Binyamin/Zvi Yehuda, Jon/Nadine

We played Bridge for several hands, and my highest hand was 10 points. Most of my hands were 6 or under. I still ended up as declarer three times, making two of the contracts.

Aside from the first hand where Binyamin opened 3 hearts and his partner bid 4 NT and they made a slam, the rest of the hands were all partials. One was even passed out.

March 26, 2008

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

Another typical, lightly attended game night.

Race for the Galaxy

Nadine 45, Jon 40, Binyamin 39, Ben 30

It may be San Juan on steroids, but it's a lot more interesting. The ability to ensure that you can always get the phase you want and the privilege, too, gives you control. The Production and Consumption phases only doing things for you if you have the abilities to utilize them is hard to wrap your head around, but cool. And the seemingly vast number of different paths to victory is intriguing.

The latter may simply be due to the fact that I've only played twice. It may be that a few paths dominate others. Your ability to choose which path is severely curtailed based on the cards you draw. Therefore, if a few paths really don't work versus others, you're not going to win if you're unlucky, which could make any particular game frustrating.

In San Juan, there are not that many different final destinations that will win. In this game, it seems that you can work with not only different synergies but different end points. I'm eager to try again.

In our previous game, Nadine killed us with a straight Brown strategy. Luckily, she didn't get the cards for that one again. Neither I nor Ben could pull a 6 point card to save our skin, but I realized in mid-game that I was the only player producing goods; everyone else had windfall worlds. That's when I realized that I had to start shipping big time. It caught me up, although not enough to win.

The card that let's you build military worlds for discards instead of conquest is a super card, and also helped.

Year of the Dragon

Binyamin 114, David 104, Jon 97, Ben 79, Nadine 76

Binyamin taught us all this game, which turned out to be another excellent Euro strategy game. Binyamin claims that it's like a less lucky version of Notre Dame; I think that's a bit of a stretch.

Anyway, he neglected to mention how difficult the game is to those with the least initiative, so I started off feeling a crunch. On the other hand, Binyamin won even though he spent the last half of the game in last initiative place.

David tried a straight victory point through books approach, gaining 9 points every round for half the game and pulling way ahead of everyone else, and looked like he was headed to complete victory. But Binyamin's dragons were eventually giving him up to 7 points a round, and his people and statues added enough bonus to overtake David's lead at the end.

All in all, quite interesting.

Bridge

Ben/Binyamin 600, Jon/Nadine 130

We played a few rounds. Actually I played three hands, and Nadine played the fourth. Our biggest loss was down three doubled in the last hand.