September 2005 Archives

Manila

We started out the night with five players. Not many games immediately come to mind with that number. Fortunately, we picked a new game to play. And after reading all of the rules and waiting for everyone to shut up and stop interrupting during the rules explination, we started playing. Manila is a game that uses dice to move three ships into harbor. There are three dice roles, during which each player can place one piece to bet on what the final outcome will be. You can bet that a certain number of ships will arrive safely or that a certain number will fail to arrive. You can bet that a cargo will arrive. And there are a couple of different power spots to place your token at. The first is a pilot that can either help or hinder a ship. Another is a pirate that can board a ship or get its bounty. The last is the insurance agent who pays for ships that fail to make it into port.

The other aspect to this game has a Modern Art feel to it. You start the game with two wares. If you win the action to become harbor master, you may buy another ware. And when ships make it into port, their wares increase in price. So you are trying to increase the value of cards that you hold and hurt the other cards.

In this game, I was never harbor master. You save money by not paying for it. But you are at the mercy of who wins and therefore which order you go in. You want to go sooner rather than later. Doug was to my left and he won a number of times. This meant that I went last a number of times. But it was good in that Doug was helping the cargoes that I held. Late in the game, I decided to bet on some extreme long shots. I paid 2 dollars for a 15 dollar reward if none of the boats made it. And luckily they all failed to make it! This happened twice, which I think is the reason why I won the game. Everyone in this game was trying to get two ships into port. Another possible strategy is to place all three as far away as possible and hope that none of them make it in. But noone tried that approach.

Schnappchen Jagd

Two people left for the night. Which left us with three. Jon suggested this trick taking game. I was a little rusty in the strategy but fortunately, everyone was as well. Doug was giving me too many tricks with the junk that I was collecting and not trying to hurt me. So I think that that helped me win the game.

I get into my truck at 6:30pm to drive to yoga and I am greeted with a fricking blast furnance! I regret taking my 3 week vacation during September. I wanted to have nice and warm temperatures for the morning bike ride, but then it gets far too hot in the afternoon. It is supposed to be fall and yet we are having record breaking days. Global warming does exist!

During my bike trips I notice piles of beer laying beside the road. I wonder if, at night, a pickup truck full of people pulls off the road and turn off its engine. The people then sit and drink beer and take pot shots at stop signs. I just wish they would clean up after themselves!

I came across some Texas sized portions today. Apart from being amusing, what purpose do they serve? I guess it could be a meal for two. But I bet that there are people out there that order this and eat it themselves.

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With all the news currently about hurricanes and levies, I wonder what is being built here in Round Rock. There was an existing feature that seems like it is a retaining wall. It is made from earth and is at least twenty feet high. And just recently, they have built a concrete wall along it.

I need to investigate what would happen in a flood around here...

Diamant

While we were waiting for Adam and Mike to show up, we decided to play a quick filler game. I pulled out Diamant. It is a good push your luck game with an element of chicken thrown in. I don't understand why the Grimms hate this game so much.

Struggle of Empires

So now we had six people. Our options were to split up into two three player games or one six. Medici and Union Pacific were brought up. But fortunately, I remembered that we have not yet played Struggle of Empires. And fortunately, everyone was interested in playing. So we struggled through reading the rules and then started the game. I picked blue which turned out to be France.

The first thing that you do after setting up the board is to detemine the two sides for a war. The game is played over three wars and during each war, you get five turns of two actions apiece. Looking at our starting positions, I deternimed that Mike and Adam were threats to me. So my goal was to get them on my side. And fortunately, that turned out to be the case. I only had to bid three gold to make that happen.

Since Mike was my ally, he asked me for help in defeating John. He told me that he would help me in defeating the Germans during my turn. So I agreed. He rolled badly and caused both him to loose and myself to take a loss of one army unit. I decided to wait on attacking those Germans and going after the Central Europeans. He then decided to attack again. He asked me for help once again. But this time, he made it clear that he was not honoring the previous agreement. Since he wasn't going to help me out, I knew he wasn't going to honor this agreement either so I decided not to help him. Three times later on during the game I asked for him to hold up his end of the bargain. And three times he refused! So let it be known from this time forward that Mike is a welcher!

While we were playing, we determined that this game was going to take quite a while to play. So we decided to stop after the first war and call it as a learning game. Too bad. Because after Doug was determined to be the leader, everyone picked on him. And then it was Adam and Mike's turn. Which left me winning the game!

And here I thought that I won the Hurricane Lottery. In the middle of June, I made reservations for a trip to Florida. I wanted to spend some of my frequent flyer miles, and I reliazed that I could only book a trip starting at September for 25K miles (50K for an earlier trip). So I did. In the middle of Hurrican season. During the most active month even. Perhaps I was mad...

But, I was fortunate! A week before the trip, Hurricane Ophelia was off the coast of Florida but it finally moved north. Weather was sunny and hot. And then on Sunday, there were tropical depressions moving towards Florida. Tropical depression #1 turned into Hurricane Rita and went through the Florida Keys. On Monday, I flew back home and the rain from Rita was starting to hit the coast.

And now on Wednesday, Rita is a category 5 storm that is headed for Austin! Well, the wildly inaccurate storm tracking information has it going like a hundred miles east of us. And it turns into a category 1 storm when it is this far inland.

When I went to the grocery store today, most of the bottled water was bought out. The panic buying had begun in earnest. People were advising to buy gas now while the refineries were still in one piece and gas was only expensive (after all it could become astronomical). Sigh...

I was driving towards the airport today and I heard a loud crack. I look down on my windshield and notice this large rock sitting there. Some car in front of me must have kicked it up.

I feel like I am playing pinball and my truck is a paddle!

My battery died today. I don't seem to have a good experience with batteries. They don't seem to last a long time. Two to three years at most. Well, at least it died today. It would have been much worse if I started the truck tomorrow and it would have died.

You know you are in the country when a truck drives past you, enters into a pasture, starts wildly beeping its horn (and cows start stampeding towards it), drives up to a tractor tire laying on the ground, and remotely dumps feed into it...

Sigh... There are three things that are certain in life: 1) Death, 2) Taxes and 3) I drive too many miles in my commute!

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Fjords

While Adam and I were waiting for people to show up, we started out with this new two player game. It is played in two phases. The first is carcassonne-like where you create the area of the Fjord and place farm houses on it. During the second phase, you claim territory by placing markers on farmland. The player who places more markers will win the round. We only played one round but I was able to win it. I would certinally like to play it again.

Fiese Freunde Fette Feten

Mike and I orded this new Friedemann Friese game from Adam Spielte because there were rumours that Rio Grande Games was going to censor it and tone it down (which is a shame. they were a good company. we are adults here). This game is basically a set collecting game. It seemed like it would be a fun game. But this requires that all of the people get into the mood of role playing during the game. Unfortuately, I was counting on (social gamer) Mike to liven it up but he was quiet and reserved during the game (too bad Dan wasn't playing it). I would certinally play it again with the right crowd.

Ubongo

For our next game, we play a quick playing puzzle game. Each player has a set of twelve colored tetris like pieces and receives one puzzle card. Then, each player flips the card over and reveals a number of tetris pieces and the shape that they have to arrange the pieces into. The first player that solves the puzzle in the time alloted can then move up to three spaces and then collect the first two gems on the board. The next can move up to two spaces (progressing down to zero). At the end of the game, the person with the most like colored gems wins the game. This was an unexpectedly fun and tense game for me.

Easy Come, Easy Go

To finish up the night we played two games of Easy Come, Easy Go. I am still liking this game as a quick filler game. There is a little bit of thought that is required when you decide which dice to lock (and therefore, which prize to go after).

That's Life

Well, I hosted a somewhat last minute Labor Day Gaming. I am so out of touch with holidays that I didn't know that Labor Day was coming up until my manager mentioned it. We always intend that during these day gaming sessions people will play longer, meatier games. Since a couple of people were running late, we started off with a quick and light game. And unfortunately for me, the dice hated me and I got my lowest score ever. Which made me realize that when the dice hate you, this game does not give you that many other choices. Yes, you can hope move the sentinels but other people (who are having better luck) are doing that as well. Fortunately, its a quick game.

Wallenstein

Sadly, this game was the only long and meaty game that I played. And we got off to a rough start. I has been a while (year +) since we played this game last so we slowly read the rules. The translated rules are rather horrible and left many holes/questions. Fortunately, Ed has played the game online and was able to answer our questions. Also, Mike wanders by after we carefully set up the game and seed the cube tower. He picks up the tower and shakes it and asks "What's this?" Gah!

This is a game that would play better when all of the players are experienced and familiar with the strategy. I was able to get second place, but I was not aggressive enough in the end.

Roborally

Ed brought out Roborally for us to play. And it has been a while since I have played this game online, so I decided to give it a try. And boy, what a chaotic and painfull game it was. If your robot has no damage, then you get nine cards to play which you must quickly figure out which order to place them so that you can move towards a goal. I was dealt a lot of useless cards (almost all turns or all moves). Which meant that it was not until the third turn that I was able to move out of the starting gate. I was able to eventually get close to the third goal, but Susan was able to win the game. So we decided to play again. This time we all got three option cards and was able to choose one. I chose double lasers which I thought would be nasty. Ed chose an option that allowed him to lock one of the opponent's cards. Susan chose remote control which was by far the most dangerous weapon in the game. When you are hit with it, you erase the opponent's cards and they use yours. Needless to say, Susan was able to hose Ed and take him out of the running for the game. And then she set her sights on me and I was reduced to a smoking cripple. As Susan came close to winning, we decided to forget about going for the goals and try to take her out. But unfortunately, she was able to avoid us and get the last goal.

San Juan

Gaming was winding down and people were leaving. So Jon pulled out a quick game to cap the night off with. While not exactly mind-less, it is a somewhat quick game. I have a feeling that there are only so many strategies that you can take with this game. But, fortunately none of us playing the game were one of those type of people.

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During my bike ride this morning, I noticed some abandoned harvesters. And I don't really understand what exactly is going on. At some point in the year, a field is plowed over and then seeded with this quick growing type of corn plant. They will then leave this field alone to grow. They will not water it or tend it. And at some point every plant will then die. The field will then sit there for a long time. Why, I dont know? Dry out? Rot? Ferment? And then they harvest it. I guess for this hard as a rock corn. Perhaps they gind everything up and feed it to cows. It seems like you can do that to a lot of things... (like cow carcasses -- and hence you get BSE).

And then I decided to stop by with some friends at Russ' house. He has decided to sell all of his worldly possessions (including his house and car) and move to Wroclaw to live with a new girfriend.

I seems like many people that I know are making or are considering life changing decisions.

I went to lunch today to the Asian Market and saw this store outside. Which is amusing really. One of the benefits of the internet is that you can have virtual stores. And in fact, one company, eBay, was created to do just that for auctions. And now, because they are so popular, brick and mortar versions are popping up!

And then, when I went to watch "40 Year Old Virgin", one of the main characters did exactly that! Talk about Hollywood imitating current culture...

King Arthur the Card Game

Well, thankfully, Jon had an emergency hosting of game night, since I was innundated with a work-related emergency. For the first game, we tried out a new game that I ordered from Adam Spielt. And that was a new Knizia game that was based on another of his board games. It is a quick game about completing adventures of the Knights of the Round Table. Doug and I got off to a quck start by completing easy adventures while Jon opted to gather large sets of Knights to complete the tougher adventures. When I finished the game, I found out that Doug pipped me by one point! I guess I tried to go for too many easy (and low point scoring) adventures... I was a good game that I would play again.

Coloretto Amazonas

For our second game, Doug's roommate, Matt, joined us. And I brought out another new game that is the sequel of a popular game, Coloretto. In this game, each player has 4 spots to place cards based on color. During their turn, they have two choices: they can play a card on their own area, or they can give a card to their opponent (and hopefully remove a card from them). Unfortunately, Matt did not seem to understand this game and gave Doug several cards (instead of giving them to someone else to remove them). And this, I believe, helped Doug win the game. I think this game needs another playing to determine if it is as good as the original game. In the first playing, it did not seem like there was enough difficult decisions to make. And there was no feeling of pushing your luck either.

Maharaja: Palace Building in India

For the last game of the night, we play a relatively new game which unfortunately we do not play anymore for some reason (perhaps because there are too many new games now). I made one critical mistake during the game which put me out of the running to win the game. I had the build a palace for 9 guy with just enough money to perform my two actions. Jon went before me and accidently selected the "steal another player's ability" action. He then decided to steal mine and then I could not perform my two actions. This allowed Doug to be the sole winner of one area (giving him a +5 bonus I think). Unfortunately, this game is brutal in that you cannot recover from such a mistake to get back into the running. Sigh.

Another thing that was not fun was that both Grimms were seriously grimming during this game. It seemed like it took forever to finish the game.