TransAmerica

Sadly, I have heard that a game designer, Franz-Benno Delonge has passed away. And in honor of him, we are dedicating this night to play his games. First up was a quintessential light and fluffy filler game TransAmerica. It has been quite a while since I have played this game. But it was easy to get back on the bicycle and ride it again. I did pretty well. I was the first to connect my five cities in two of the three rounds. And that was enough to give me the win.

Big City

Next up was the quintessential lunch time game. And that is how I got started in this field or shall I say hobby. It is an easy game that can be played in less than an hour. While I have fond memories of playing this game back when we played lunch-time games at IBM, I do not have fond memories of this playing. It seems my role was to be hosed by Jon and his playing of parks and factories. Which put me solidly in last place. Well, at least it was over quickly.

Goldbräu

After that was Goldbräu. Which is a decent game of limited actions. With only three actions that you can perform during the seven days of the week, you would think that the game would be boring. But this game forces you to make hard choices. Do you get another stock in a company? Do you expand the territory of a company that you own? Or do you try and take control of the boss position in a company?

The only annoying factor is the simultaneous reveal mechanism of this game. Where you are rewarded for choosing an option that no one else does.

Tichu

Jon started the game with a rather weak hand. But no one was able to go over what he played. So he sneaked out to finish first. Which left Doug, with the Tichu hand, missing his opportunity. I was able to get my only points out of my hand and into my tricks taken pile. So I passed when Mike got the lead and gave the other team my Phoenix.

I made a number of random wishes against Mike. But none were more infuriating than my five wish on a lead of Mah Jong, two, three, four, and Phoenix. Mike had to bomb that straight with his run-bomb containing a five. Which was good, because my partner would have to split his long straight up to satisfy that wish (and leave him with many stragglers). Perhaps I shouldn’t get too into random wishing…

You know, as I look up the games that Franz-Benno Delonge created, I realize that I own some more of his games! Games like Manila, Dos Rios, and Fjords! I am going to have to declare next week to be a continuation of the mourning process and play those games… along with Tichu hopefully.

There were five of us tonight at Mesa Rosa. We started out playing a couple hands of Mu. But then Nick wanted to step out. So we played a game of Tichu.

It was not much of a game. I started off strong. Then Jon stepped up to the plate (with John over-tichuing even). And the desperation Grand-Tichu was set with a one-two.

The only amusing thing this evening was with Nick helping (or, at least, giving advice) Traci during the game, we gave them the name of “Nick Traci”.

Notre Dame

Mike and I wanted to play Phoenicia with five players, but that was nixxed by John. So, instead we played Notre Dame. I still don’t know what to think about this game. It has some good mechanisms. But it is really influenced by who is playing at the table. More specifically, it is heavily influenced by who is sitting at your right. In this game, it was John. And he filtered the cards that he passed me. I would mostly see the two different rat management cards. And sometimes the Notre Dame card. Never the move your vehicle around the board card. Which left me with no ability to pursue the travel around the board and collect a lot of tokens victory path.

And I don’t like the luck involved of being able to draw your own Notre Dame card in the last pile of three before a scoring. All during the game, I kept drawing it in my first group of three cards. So, I got in there early and was able to see if others would go in there or not.

Tichu

In tonight’s Tichu game, I made a mistake in going out third instead of fourth. I should have passed when Mike played and let his team take the Phoenix for minus twenty-five points. All of the other points were out of my hand and my partner, Doug, had gone out first. Sigh. I am really getting rusty at Tichu. Seventeen days have passed since I have played it last…

On the second hand, I call Tichu with a one through Jack straight, a Dragon, a Dog, and a three. Unfortunately, a bomb stopped me. But you can’t predict when that will happen, so you just have to accept it.

Doug was a little bit of a wimp tonight. He did not call Tichu three times and still went out first with no real competition. Fortunately, we were able to coast for the win before the other team caught up.

Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization

Marty, Harry, and I played Through the Ages tonight. The three player game was pretty quick at three and a half hours long. I did pretty well with my leaders.

Homer was first. This was the first time that I have played with him. I liked him because he gives you easier troop building and victory points for the troops.

Michelangelo was next. I didn’t bother to get the St. Peter’s Basilica. Instead, I built the University Carolina which gave me much needed science income. I did build a theater though. They are certainly helpful later on in the game. And they give bonuses for certain leaders.

Bach was next. This fit in perfectly with my theater strategy. Since I knew that there were some leader killing cards out there, I didn’t want to get too dependent on the leader bonuses. I built the Eiffel tower for a straight 4 victory point generation. And, what a surprise, an Iconoclasm came out and made me discard him.

But Elvis was waiting in the wings. So I built the movies to get a good bonus. And Fast Food chains for a one time bonus.

This game is all about being well rounded and still generating victory points. And my problem was my armies. Fortunately, I was just enough ahead in the first and second ages to not be attacked. Surprisingly enough, I made it through the third age with out any wars declared on me and only one attack on a colony which I let succeed.

I was also surprised to see that no one kept up with me in culture point generation. I was at 12 and Marty and Harry were at 3 for a long while. And, by the end of the game, I was 50 points ahead of Marty. I didn’t do that well in the end game scoring, but my lead was too substantial to overcome.

Phoenicia

First up was Phoenicia again. This time a fort was in the initial three cards. I had seven dollars, so I bid on it and won it. This hurt me getting my initial production ramped up for a couple of rounds. But with two forts in the game, I thought it was worth it. John went for dye houses and was able to purchase both of them. But he was unable to get a fort. Which meant he was limited in the number of workers. I went after mining. However, in a three player game, there is only one smelter. So I was only able to convert my mining into improved mining. I was eventually able to move all of my workers over to mining and keep my production in the lead. Mike was certainly lagging in production. But he was able to buy a city center.

And then came a critical round. I wanted a public works. I made a mistake in letting Mike get the first one cheaply. Mike then bid all of his money for the second. Which was more than I wanted to pay. I turned my sights on the Refugee Settlement, but John bid all of his money to get it. Mike was then able to get a City Walls to go beyond 28. John bought the Trade Fleet. And I bought the second City Walls. I was hoping to buy the Trade Fleet as well to first place guaranteed. But I was able to train enough workers to pip Mike at the end.

Next time, I will try and remember just how important the City Center/Shipyard and the Public Works are to end-game victory point generation. It is not just about ramping up your income production.

Aquadukt

John brought out Aquadukt which is a short and simple dice fest. But not the kind of dice game that I like. On your turn, you can either place up to three of your houses randomly (with a 20 sided die), place a well, or build irrigation channels. Houses can only last on the board if they are next to a 1-sized canal or up to two away from a 2-sized canal. The strategy in this game is when and where you place the wells, and how you extend the canals. When you place houses, it is random in which of the 20 neighborhoods you can place a house. And you might have a choice on where to place the house in the neighborhood.

Today, I won two 2 mark hands. They were pretty similar in that, for the
last bone that I would play, I need it to be a “walker.” Which means that
it needed to be the top value in its suit with no trump possible.

The first hand was: 1:1 2:2 4:4 5:5 6:3 3:3 3:2. For this hand, I called
no trump, and led the 6:3 as a three. One of the opponents knew I was
going to walk a small three but my 1:1 drew out his 3:1. So when I played
my 3:3 it would draw out his last three. And I would claim with the 3:2.

The other hand was: 4:4 6:4 4:3 4:1 1:1 3:3 3:2. For this hand, I
called 4’s as trump. I needed that no one on the opposing team had all
three of the remaining 4s. Fortunately, they did not and I was able to
run trump out. Next up was to play my double 1, the double 3, and then
the 3:2. Once again, no one had “protection for threes” (meaning that
they could keep two threes and play the low one on the double three and
keep the high one to stop the 3:2).

The initial draw was amusing today. When there are more than four people waiting to play a game, we each draw one bone randomly and the people who hold the highest four bones will play. I drew a 6:5 so I was guaranteed to play. The second to the last person drew the 1:0. And, surprisingly, the last person drew the 0:0 (4% chance)!

Phoenicia

First up was Phoenicia — a game I have been waiting on for a while now. Thankfully, the publisher allowed people to play an online version for free while the game was being published. This allowed me to try it to see if it was different from Zepter which I already own. And it is. It is much more condensed and quicker. The only problem with it is how to explain the “technology tree” to new people. There is something on the board that shows what cards give discounts or abilities to other cards. But it shows farming (which does neither) and doesn’t show the granary (which gives improved storage) or five of the other cards in the game.

I took the dyer and dye house, but I was limited by the number of workers since I missed out on both forts. Doug was doing advanced mining, but he was limited by storehouses (and had to discard money). I was eventually able to end it by buying a city wall.

UR

Next up was UR which I bought during Boulder Game’s Saturday night sale. With a FAQ, we had another go at the game. Everyone pretty much left each other alone during the beginning of the game. I had a sweet setup in the corner with Culture and Agriculture rapidly growing my civilization.

Railroad Dice 2

After John nixed To Court the King, we surprisingly settled on Railroad Dice 2! I was glad to get this game back on my radar. After a quick rules refresher (these are perhaps the most poorly translated rules that I own — and after the game was over, I noticed that we got two things wrong.), we played the game. The game bogged down towards the end as all of the simple dice were gone and we could not replace them with complex dice quickly enough. But I still like this game and consider it a fun and innovative game.

What a painfully slow starting Tichu game it was. Perhaps the worst one ever. The score should not be 185 to 215 after six hands!

I took advantage of Traci’s mistake when she tried to go on top of my eight high length 6 straight. After everyone had passed, I played the Mahjong and wished for a 4. Unfortunately, she had another four in her hand. 🙁

Oh, and by the way Dougie, I have now seen for my own one as long as yours…

Alhambra: The dice game

We started out tonight with a new dice game. This one is built on the Alhambra franchise. It is not that bad, actually. If you can get over the fact this is a dice game after all. There are six areas: one for each of the colored building types. The game is played over five rounds with scoring opportunities for the first, third, and fifth round. For each round, people try and compete for buildings that show up. There is one of each type guaranteed and five extra drawn from a bag. In a four player game, you get four opportunities to roll high in a color. You place your marker when you are done rolling. There are three chances to roll the dice. And you can carry over dice in later rolls by not rolling them again. The only problem is that the number of dice showing has three levels based on how many times you rolled to achieve that result. So six of a color on the third roll can be beaten by another person who rolled six of that color using two rolls.

After everyone has rolled, we go through the buildings and hand them out. The first player in the line gets first choice and must place the building using the usual rules or place it in the holding area. Which is not that bad, because you can decide after rolling the dice one or two times to abort and move a piece from the holding area to your board.

As you can see from the above, John built a walled in garden of Alhambra (with only one mistake noticed after the fact. Mike was even worse with the mistakes…)

Taluva

Next up was Taluva. Which is not a bad three player game. The game has some pretty short rules. Although the rule set did pose a problem with our group.

To Court The King

And to finish out the night we played another light dice game. This is another interesting game where you try and get certain combinations of dice that match personalities. These personalities will give you either more dice or a power to alter the dice. This process snowballs during the game until you can successfully roll seven dice that have the same number. And then it enters the final round. It is not that painful to miss rolling for your target personality. You can always get at least one personality.

Wikinger

Another playing of Wikinger for me. The first time I played, the game was a little broken. But that was because we got a rule wrong. This time, the game played okay. Maybe a 5 or so.

Antiquity

Kevin and Debra Nunn showed up for Ed’s game day. It was good to see them again. Unfortunately, I could not play with them because this ultra meaty game beckoned. And it took a while to play since we had a new player with us. I love this game. The theme is great and the rules fit almost perfectly. The only down side is maintaining hundreds of tiny, little cardboard chits. We ended one turn early when I claimed the win. With five cart houses and a bunch of food, I could easily surround poor Paul. He was already feeling the effects of not being able to dump pollution in his homelands once I made the run into his territory. Jon said he would have won as well, but I had much more unpolluted territory than he did.

Ed dutifully takes pictures of every game that is played for his photo gallery. And, because of that, you almost never seem him in a picture. One word of advice, Ed: tripod. Another amusing moment was when both Ed and I were taking multiple pictures of a game in progress. It made for a paparazzi moment…

Ra

Last up was Ra — one of my favorite Knizia bidding games. Unfortunately, the Egyptian gods were not with me. During the first era, the person on my right kept pulling Ra chits. Which stopped me from getting small groups to bid with my 2 money. And, during the second and third eras, I scored zero points! Ras came up awfully quick. And there was no way for me to bid on anything with my middle money.