Caylus

Wow, it been a while since I have played this game. It was initially hot. And was played quite a bit. But new games have pushed this one off of the radar. So it was nice to play it again. And I was a little rusty. I mistimed when two of the later rounds would finish. So I couldn’t build as much as I had planned. Which cost me second place. However, it was still a good game.

Mu

With only three players who like to play Mu, it is hard to get a five player game of this going. Usually, we have to cajole, threaten, mock, brow-beat, or otherwise forcibly convince other people to play it. And it is sad that, after playing games with us, they still do not see the kernel of greatness that lies within this game.

Tichu

Sadly, memories of this game are mostly lost to the mists of time. On Adam’s set Tichu, an Ace bomb of his did not help him when faced with Doug’s King bomb.

Fjords

Every one bugged out early, so I played a two player game with Adam. I like this game. It is part Carcasonne and part Go.

There was another game day at Ed’s house. I had brought my camera with the 70-200mm lens to the tournament. But I was too nervous to bring it outside. If I had then it would have been amusing since someone else brought a Canon 20D with a 70-200mm lens as well. We would have looked like Paparazzi. When I brought it inside Ed’s house, I decided to take a picture with it on. I had to walk off into the other room to get this framed. With an effective 1.6 multiplier, this lens at 200mm turns into a 320mm lens.

Dragon Parade

Ed brought out a new Knizia game for us to try. It is a rather simple game. A dragon starts in the middle of the board. People will play a card that moves it towards one of two gates (a red one and a yellow one) and they will then place a token that will mark where they think it will finally end up. When it stops, they get points based on how close they were to the Dragon. If they were on the other side of the market, then they will get negative points.

As you can see from my one of my hands, I had a mostly one sided card distribution. Which is good if a couple of people before you send the Dragon marching off into your direction. And that is what happened for me. It also helps if the person before you sets you up to be able to end the round early by marching the Dragon past a gate. John on my right did it for me one time. And I was able to get Ed (on my left) to do it on another round. That helped cement me into winning the game.

Age of Discovery

Ed brought out another free (review copy) game on the table. This game had a theme (boats and exploration), but, for some reason, didn’t really grab me. One of the interesting things about this game is that, at the start, each player is given a secret goal card that scores extra victory points for them. They are mostly different and incompatible goals. One is to be the only person at a site. Another is to have at least one ship at a site. Next was to have 50% of the ships at a site. And the last one was to have the majority at a site.

Mike’s goal was obvious when he immediately filled up a site that didn’t require too many ships to complete. I think mine was obvious as well, when I was placing small ships at a lot of sites. Only Ed and Susan were not obvious as to their goals.

Honey Bears

Honey Bears was next on the plate. I like this game. The theme works (bears going after honey). The rules are easy. And the concept is simple: cards, at the end, are worth victory points. However, the cards also move the bear towards the honey and make the bear worth more victory. So you have tense balancing act to perform: you have to play cards to make the bears more valuable but hold cards to score the points.

One of my hands was simple for me. Go yellow bear!! Go red bear!

After the game ended, we tried one round with the following variant. Everyone plays their card at the same time and face down. Starting with the start player, each person reveals their card and moves the appropriate bear. Which was interesting. Often times, only a couple of bears would move because everyone played one of two colors.

Canal Mania

To end out the night, I played Canal Mania. Which was alright. But after playing so many games of Age of Steam, I miss having the ability to pick which tracks to lay. In this game, you only have a couple of choices (from five to one) of segments to build. And once you have made your choice, you next have to concentrate on building the segment before you pick another segment.

Taluva

John brought out Taluva. This a game with really thick tiles. And which should be a fast playing and lightly meaty game. Depending upon how your group plays, of course. Your turn is simple, draw a tile and then place it on the board (following a few, light restrictions). Then, you can place your pieces somewhere. Either place a hut on a level 1 spot, a temple next to a settlement of three or more huts and no other temple, a tower on a level 3 spot next to your hut, or huts on all adjacent, unoccupied, locations that are the same terrain type. The game ends when someone places all of two types of their pieces or when the last tile is placed.

This is a game where everyone needs to be aware of opportunities that another player can take in order to get ahead. If everyone picks on each other equally, then no one can get ahead. However, in our game, Mike jumped out in the lead and John was in second. I continued playing the game trying to win, of course. But when John (the 2nd place person) picks on me (the third), then I have no motivation to stop Mike from winning. I am not going to stop Mike from winning only to let John win instead.

Alhambra

It has been a long time since I have played this game. Too long. But there are so many games out there that you really have to start picking and choosing which ones you will spend time with. I started out this game behind the pack at the first scoring round with a score of zero. I didn’t build anything because the things that I could build were of colors that people were already fighting over. So I bided my time and collected currency. The game was also weird in that red and green did not show up until late in the game. In the second scoring round, I caught up and in the third, I pulled ahead. It helped that I secured majorities in the two most expensive colors (purple and green).

Mini Bridge

While we were waiting for everyone to show up, Adam dealt out a hand of mini-bridge. I was the chosen one with 12 points. When I look at the dummy’s hand, I was depressed. In the dummy’s strongest suit, I had no cards. And in my strongest suit, the dummy had one King. So I chose eight Spades. Sadly, I did not make it and was off by one. Apparently, I needed to let Adam (sitting on my right) win a trick. He would take one more and then play a card that I would win.

Union Pacific

Mike has not played this classic game and I have not played it in a long time. So we brought it out. The first payout caught Doug at a disadvantage since everyone else had two trains out and he only had one. The next one caught me by surprise. I did not get a chance to put my Union Pacific shares out in time. Fortunately, no one else did either. I was also lucky in not fighting other people for control in my shares. So I jumped out in the lead. At the end of the game, Adam was able to just catch up. But not by enough. I won by one share.

Age of Steam: Soul Train

For our meaty game of the night, we broke out Age of Steam. With five players, we tried searching for a map that was designed for 5. We didn’t find any new maps, so we just picked one and went for it. And that turned out to be Disco Inferno. Which might be a mistake with Mike-Pod playing.

As it was a new map, none of us had any experience with the strategy required for this board. The map is broken into three areas (Hell, Earth, and Heaven). Six cubes of each color are placed on cities in Hell. The goal is to transport them to the corresponding cities in Earth. And the game will move to phase two when at least twenty have been transported. At that point, all tracks leading to Hell will be removed (giving players 1/3 of an income point). Hell will be removed, flipped over, and placed above Earth as Heaven. Now, there are only two turns to transport the souls to Heaven!

We started out with $20 dollars. Most people took three extra shares while Mike and I took two. Bidding was intense. And I thought it went far too high. But I won the start player with ten dollars and chose Locomotive. Adam chose first build and fortunately he did not build where I had wanted to go. Jon was amusing. He had chosen first move. So his goal was to hose someone who had already built. With my level 2 locomotive, Jon chose to avoid going after me. Instead, he went after Adam. Which hurt both of them badly. But, over the course of the game, Jon hurt himself the most and ended the game with a score close to zero.

By the time that we realized the important aspects of this map, I had built my tracks pretty well in that regard. We figured out that after the cubes are delivered to Earth, their next stop is Heaven. So you want to control the routes upwards to Heaven.

With the ability to build six hexes each turn, you can lay a lot of track. Doug made a surprising first build by laying track from Kool to Domus and effectively cutting off 3rd Rock. Which meant that not a lot of purples were delivered there. Sigh. Fortunately, there were six black cubes on Earth and a lot of cubes of Domus and Masse.

Doug was able to make strides in the mid-game. And pull out into the lead. But I had better connections to Heaven and was able to catch up at the end. So it came down to who had layed the most track which turned out to be me.

Amun-Re

To start out the night, we played this recent Knizia game. It is pretty sad that I haven’t played it for so long that I needed a rules refresher. And boy was I rusty in what areas to bid for. I settled on the low farmer spot Damanhur while Adam and Doug went for high farmer spots Mendes and Thebes. After my second spot of Kharga (another low farmer spot), my fate was sealed. It was clear to me that I would not be earning much income at all. And I was in a enough of a downward spiral that I could not recover.

My next problem was that I drew many of the different province bonuses but could not use them. Other people were bidding more than I could afford on the spots I needed. So I didn’t score them for the old kingdom. At the end of the game, I had one of every province bonus and could only use two (I traded the others in for one gold each — so sad) because, again, people were bidding high on spots I needed.

I definitely want to play this game again. And soon enough so that I can remember some of the painful lessons that I have just learned.

Hoity Toity

Next up was Hoity Toity. This is a game that I am never fond of playing. After all, it is just a glorified game of Rock/Paper/Scissors that rewards you for guessing different than all of the other players. But its been a while since I have played it last and I was game to try it again.

And, of course, I was not guessing differently than everyone else. I would thief at the auction house and someone else would pick thief as well. Or, when I wanted to go to one of the places and be alone, all five people would pick that place. Sigh. In the end, I was able to get the biggest art display. But I was too far away from the leaders to win. I only moved into second to last place.

Tichu

Ahh, Tichu. I can’t get enough of this game. And, with Adam leaving, I am going to need to overdose on it because, when he is gone, the chances that I will play this game are going to be diminished.

Somehow, I even like this game when I get terrible card distributions. Tonight, I had two hands with an Ace and one hand with three Aces and the Phoenix. And, on what would be my best hand of the night, Adam made a random Ace wish. Which made me not call Tichu (the Tichu call would already be risky enough with a low trip and a medium sequential-pair). But, I got my karmic-revenge! On the next hand, Adam again made an Ace wish which hurt his partner. Jon then calls Tichu because there is one less Ace out there. Jon also had a four bomb but was still in trouble. I had to use my five bomb (passed to me by Adam) to stop Adam from going out first.

Our team was able to stop Adam’s first Grand Tichu call because I misplayed a straight. It was not a valid five card straight. And Adam could not deal with the resulting single card onslaught.

Mini-Bridge

Rehana still had not show up to drive Adam home. So Adam dealt out a hand of mini-bridge. It’s sad that Adam is leaving. Because he will not have enough time to convert Jon and myself to bridge players. Rehana then showed up just as Adam finished dealing the cards out. So we called out to her to come play bridge with us. The points turned out to be: Jon (11), Adam (9), Mark (12), Rehana (8). So I won the bidding and Jon tabled his hand. I decided to make Hearts trump and go for the minimum number of tricks (8). You can see Rehana’s opening play of the eight of clubs. Which I lost to Adam’s Ace(?) after I ducked. I lost a couple more tricks. Including one winning low Spade trick when Rehana trumped it. Fortunately, when there were eight tricks left, I was able to get control and run the Hearts out. The remaining Hearts were split well for me to pull this off.

Perikles

Wow, Jon suggested that we play Perikles and everyone agreed. Pinch me, I must be dreaming.

I was definitely glad that I got a chance to play this again. But it will probably be my last time with this group. I don’t think others came away with a good impression of it. Doug kept loudly proclaiming that I was in the lead and everyone should get me. However, in the end, Doug won the game and I came in third. Sigh.

Tichu

To finish out the night, we played Tichu. On my failed Tichu call, I knew it was a risk when I called it. And Doug confirmed it when he over Tichued.

Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization

After taking some flak on Rozmiarek’s site about only having a meaty diet when gaming, I was ready to play some lighter weight games tonight. Unfortunately, the other people wanted to play TtA yet again. Mike has declared that this game is in his top 10 game list and that he had to own a copy at all costs. So he bought one copy of this rare game (only 500 were made). He quoted a price of between 100 and 200 dollars for what he paid. I suspected that the location was Gnome, Alaska in that price range.

The actual game has some nicely produced components (the box, the center boards, and the rules) and some poorly produced components (the cards and the player boards). I consider these poorly produced because, although the look nice and colorful, they cannot stand up to repeated game play. My copy is perfectly functional and I will wait until the second edition is printed before purchasing a real copy.

This game has a couple of flaws. First, is that it is played slowly. There is not much that you can do about this. Hopefully, we will get faster as we are more experienced with it. The second is the drawing of cards from the military deck. For the civil deck, you see thirteen cards and can choose from them (paying more action points the farther to the right that the card is located). However, for the military deck, its just a random draw. The problem is that you need a good balance of cards in the different categories from this deck. You want some defensive cards, some tactics cards (to boost your military), and some attack cards.

In this game, I never drew a defense card during the entire game! Gah! Total suckage. I believe that we need a house rule to fix this. Use the same face up setup for civil cards.

Because we only played until the end of the second era, we played with a house rule of you couldn’t use St. Peter’s Basilica with Michelangelo (and also, we discovered, with Joan of Arc).

In our game, Mike was clearly in first and I was clearly in second. Then, much farther back, was Adam and Jon bringing up the rear. I was doing good with keeping an army of three warriors using Legion tactics. The problem was that I had to spend them a couple of times on bidding for colonies. So I had to rebuild them. Unfortunately, my food and ore production was entirely consumed when I did this. So I was riding a thin line. That line broke when Adam first attacked me. He had taken Joan and built up his army enough to jump ahead of me in military strength. I decided to spend my entire army in stopping that attack. And I never was able to recover from that attack. I had missed my chance to take some stronger troops (swordsmen or riflemen). And I didn’t have enough stockpiled food and ore to rebuild.

In this game, when you attack someone, your best bet is to attack the weakest player. That attack will cripple that player. Which makes it much harder to recover and build up your military to become closer in relative military strength. This game definitely proves the old adage of the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.

Tichu

After playing TtA, Mike was up for a game of Tichu. And my one-sided run of bad luck continues…

Ed was holding another long game day. So I made cherry hand pies. They were fun to make. But towards the end, I was overwhelmed by the effort each pie took. First I had to mix the ingredients together and stick the bowl in the freezer so that the mixture would harden up. Then , for each pie, I had to:

• Take the bowl out of the freezer.
• Scoop out some of the mixture and weigh it (trying to get similar sized pies).
• Possibly put the bowl back in the freezer if I took too long making the pies
• Flour my hands well and put the scoop of the mixture and form a ball
• Put the ball down and start to roll it out
• At some point, put more flour on the circle of dough
• Stop when it is rolled out 5 inches in diameter
• Scoop out some cherry filling onto circle
• fold half of the circle over top of the cherry filling with a bench scraper
• Crimp the edges with a fork. Remembering to flour the fork because it occasionally sticks
• poke holes in the top for steam
• Pick it up with the scraper and put it on the sheet pan

My only problem with them was that I didn’t let them dry out enough after cooking.

Ed installed a flash for his camera. Its interesting just how much light a camera needs in order to take a picture. For this picture, I used ISO 1600, a shutter speed of 1/30, and a f-stop of 5.6. 1/30th of a second is pushing it at this focal length (28mm). And an ISO of 1600 is pushing it with this camera as well. Sigh. I can’t wait to get an 1D Mark III. Having an extra stop of ISO will certainly help.

Nottingham

John started off us with a new game, Nottingham. This game was billed as a light set collecting game. However, it turned out a be a hose everyone and random play game. There are seven suits of cards. On your turn, you flip over a card. You can either take it or use its power to mess with people. There are cards to seal from people, rob from people, force people to show their hands and take from them, force people to possibly give up cards, or to stop once those painful things from happening to you.

Theres no planning on what cards to collect. Only to hope that you can fulfill one of the set types that score lots of points. Playing those can’t be stopped. Otherwise, you are at the mercy of someone screwing with you. Such fun.

Susan showed us the extremely cute and furry bundle of energy called Riku.

Through the Ages

Marty had wanted to play TtA. So I brought it over. However, he only wanted to play it three player due to time restrictions. Tim joined in.

This game was close! In the end, Marty pipped me by a couple of points. Towards the end, I had a good leader (James Cook) with some territories. So I was scoring well. However, Marty was able to put Iconoclasm into play during the third era (discard all leaders not of the current era). This made me loose Cook and his point generation. Marty was able to play a good leader (Elvis Presley) and able to get his victory point generation up to 16 points a turn.

I knew I had to respond somehow. Fortunately, my army was bigger than his. And, I drew Annex (take a colony), Assassinate (kill a leader), and Spy (take 5 science points). I played Annex first and won. Later, when I was 18 points ahead in military power, I played Assassinate. Unfortunately, I did not bother to sacrifice some units to increase the power. And Marty was able to play 3 six point defense cards to keep his leader. I should have went all out.

Still, it was a fun and close game.

Age of Steam: Western U.S.

To end out the night, I played another meaty game: Age of Steam. We tried a new board as well. The board was interesting. There were two clear choices of starting locations. However, towards the end of the game, everyone was close in points. Apparently, all four corners of the map were decent starting locations. But the western half of the board had a lot of mountains. And building on mountains is costly. That probably hurt Ed and Jon somewhat.

The final scoring was nail-biting. It looked like a close race between me and a new-comer. We were tied in the first calculation. And I turned out to have built more track than he did for the win.

Through The Ages

This night I held a special event. A four player, full game of Through the Ages. We even started earlier than normal at 6:00pm. The game lasted 6 hours though. And, strangely enough, no one attacked or started a war during the game.

This game, while fun, suffers from two problems. The first is the down time. The only way to alleviate that is to bring a computer with an internet connection.

The second is randomness of the military cards. You need a well balanced draw (some tactics cards, some defense cards, some event cards, etc). It always seems that you can never draw what you need. I think that this game needs a card rack for military cards as well as civil cards.

Bootleggers

Last week, I had promised to play a game that John wanted to play. And John brought over his cart of possibilities: Gloria Mundi, Big Kini, Sienna, Himalaya, Factory Fun, Midgard, and Traders of Genoa. The group settled on Bootleggers. I had played it once and didn’t have a particularly fun time. But I was willing to give it another shot.

This is a game that has a lot of dice in it. Dice determine your production of moonshine. And dice determine the demand of speakeasies. You can mitigate the poor dice rolls with special cards (an extra still or extra dice at a still). But these cards are in a big deck with other cards and are subject to the random shuffle. You get to pick one card from a row of n+1 cards in player order. Your order is based on what card you choose at the start of the round. The cards range from 1 to 70-something and are dealt out at the beginning of the game. So, the net of it all is that you rely on getting good cards to go first. But you are waiting for the extra dice cards to show up in the display. In order to mitigate poor production dice rolls.

There are a lot of links in that chain to try and make a better experience for you… Too many.

Whatever you produce, you ship in truck to bars. The bars have three waiting lines each. If you have majority presence in a bar, you get to use the first line. If you have presence in a bar, you get to use the second line. Otherwise you are forced to use the third line. These lines and your order in the lines determine what goods are accepted by the bar. If your goods were accepted, then you get paid. Otherwise, you are screwed. You get nothing and have to get rid of the unused goods. Also, if you have majority influence in a bar, the bar will pay you extra for each good that it bought.

At the end of the game, whoever has the most money wins. Simple and unpleasant.

Mu

To end out the night, we played Mu. Its a great trick-taking game that not enough people love. We had to force Doug and John to play it. But, eventually, they will come to love it…