Age of Steam: 1830’s Pennsylvania

Adam suggested Through the Ages to play again. But when Mike and Doug joined in and we had six people over, I sat out. With Adam out of the picture, Jon suggested Age of Steam. I certainly was willing to play that. I could tell that John was not looking forward to playing it again by the pout on his face. In fact, he earned the nickname: Mr Pouty-face. We were going to let him pick the next game in appreciation for playing with us.

This map has black cubes as coal. There are two special rules for the transportation of coal to a gray city. You can either transport it like normal and score it double. Or, you can double your engine size and score it normally. The coal towns are on the western half of the board and they are situated in mountainous country. On the east are normal towns with better location. So I ignored the coal and focused on that area. I started out pretty well and built up a good network. But it became clear that John was on a downward spiral. So we called it and reset the game.

In the second game, John did much better. I still focused on the eastern half of the board. And Jon was adventurous and went after coal. When it became clear how powerful delivering coal was by how much of a boost it gave your income, I started to turn my sights westward. Jon was in the lead by delivering single coals and I was in second with good double deliveries. When I finally made it to some coal towns, I was able to make 5 and 6 length coal deliveries. This boosted my income by 10 and 12 points at a shot. So much so that we had tons of money halfway though the game. I was able to outdistance Jon again. When Jon’s income was 50 and mine was 56 and we were 3/4ths of the way through the game, we called it again.

Unfortunately, John had to leave and we could not play Medina like he suggested. Sorry, John. Next time!

Tichu

While we were waiting for Rehana to show up, we played Tichu. Our heroic team was well out in the lead when Rehana showed it, so it was desperation Grand Tichu time. Jon was the one to call it. Adam lead a straight and made a random King wish. His intention was to then lead a pair and hope to get Jon to play a pair of Kings. Unfortunately play had to pass through me first and I had a King bomb (natural). Sigh. Jon did manage to go out first. But, fortunately, we were able to stop the one-two.

Zoff in Buffalo

Last week I convinced Doug to make me one of his versions of a Frappuchino. I called it a Dougachino. It was pretty tasty. Thanks, Doug!

John wanted to start off with this classic game. Sadly, I didn’t print out the rules translation. So I explained the rules from memory with Jon helping out. We got most of them correct. Except for what happens at the end of the game. Oh well. I was even going to look up on the geek what happens. But Jon made a call as to what to do.

The Scepter of Zavandor

Next up on the table was the meaty game Scepter of Zavandor. I randomly picked the Druid as my character. It starts along the ruby path. So I was intently focused on getting my income up to switch over to rubies. Unfortunately, I could not do it in time before the game ended. I probably messed up somewhere along the line…

With five people in the game, this game really dragged! Two Grimms a-Grimming make for some downtime, let me tell you. So I wandered back and forth between the game table and where my computer was to keep my attention.

Through the Ages

Ahhh, I saw this game being played at BGG.con a lot. One of my friends, Jon, played it three or four times. Back-to-back plays even. So for a game that takes anywhere from three to five hours or more to play, thats a high recommendation. I kept an eye out on eBay for copies of this game. Unfortunately, the general buzz was too high and demand was great. Copies went for $150 or more. Also, there was news that the game was going to be reprinted, but in 2008. Sigh. So I was really happy when a version of this game fell off the back of a truck and into my lap.

After disc golf and lunch, four of us played this game. The first game took five hours to play. And the second (three player game) took three hours.

It is definitely worth the buzz. It feels like a meaty version of a civilization building game. This game has a couple of different levels to it. You can play a simple version of it. Or you can play a three era game with the option to attack people. Or you can play a four era game with full blown wars. There are different leaders with special powers during each era. And, as time passes, your technology also improves. For example, you start out with warriors, move to knights, and then to tanks.

The war aspect to this game is more of an incentive to stay in the pack with everyone else in relative strength. The stronger people can cause bad things to happen to the weaker in this game. So, while it may take resources away from your strategy to win the game, it behooves you to spend some of those resources to maintaining your national defense.

This game has definitely moved to my must-buy list. Unfortunately, it is not coming out quick enough. In the meantime, the current copy will have to do…

Genesis

Once again, Gravitt seemed to be hosing me. I wanted to play a new (to me) Knizia game. But John had described it in a negative manner. So people were bowing out. Jon went to play another game. Fortunately, Doug was willing to give it one try.

This is an area control game. But the areas are created by placing one of four colored tiles of your tribe (man, tigers, reptiles, dinosaurs) on the board. The board is a simple 14×10 grid with some of the spots being unplayable. On your turn, you either roll two dice and play the colors that were shown (2 of the six sides are wild). Or you can place one tile of any color on the board. When three or more of the same colored tiles are connected orthogonally, then it will be scored at the end of the game: 4 points for who ever owns the majority of the tiles in the group and 2 for the second place player. It is possible to score both 1st and 2nd place if you are the only person in the area. And the single largest group will score triple.

Pretty simple. Perhaps people don’t like the fact that dice are used in this game. But there are a couple of mitigating factors. Two of the pips are wild. So, if you really need to be able to place at least one tile of a color, then you have a 22% chance of not being able to place it because that color, or one of the wild faces, was not rolled. If you do not want to take that risk, then just place one of that color instead.

Goldbräu

Next up was Goldbräu. Fortunately, no one had a complaint about playing this game. It has been a while since I have played it last. So I was wanting to play this game again. And I am glad that we played it again. We only got one thing wrong. I had read in the rules about needing two or more tokens in a spot to continue staying in the spot when all six tokens are played there. Well, that was for a four player game and we had three. We removed a share of each spot but forgot to adjust to remove single tokens when the fifth token came out. Oh well…

Medici vs. Srozzi

John had to leave and the other were still playing a game. So Doug and I played this new Knizia game. It is essentially a modified Medici game. Instead of one set of goods that you are trying to get majority in, there are three sets. And instead of one ship used to store those goods, you have three of different sizes. When you reveal goods to the auction, that part remains the same. However, since there are only two players in this game, you need to name a price. The other person either takes it for that price or you do.

I kept the bidding close to the value of the goods unless there was a set that I needed to take. On the other hand, Doug seemed to overbid on goods. We only played two of the three rounds. There was some major Grimming going on in this game. But I was ahead by 41 points after the 2nd round. So I have no doubt of my eventual win.

I think that this is a good two player variant of the great classic game of Medici.

Imperial

Imperial was the first game that we played. And, this time, we played with a no investor card. This option makes the following changes: only landing on the investor space on the roundel causes a payout; when you skip past the investor space, nothing happens; at the end of a nation’s turn, everyone gets a chance to buy/upgrade a share; if someone does not control a country, then they can invest in any country.

I like this variant much better. You do not spend a lot of the time waiting for your chance to invest. Your money is invested much quicker than before. You have more chances to invest in a country before it pays out its bonds or take control over in a country that might be able to tax.

Surprisingly, I was able to control both Austria and Italy with the 3 level share throughout the game. No one bothered to take control away from me. Perhaps because I did not transform them into powerhouses like I have in the past.

Early on in the game, I could see that Adam was trying an interesting strategy. After gaining control of the three sea areas surrounding England, he concentrated on building factories, taxing, and investing. This is not something that I have seen others do before in this game. And, now that I think about it, I wonder why more people don’t do that. Factories are worth the same as two neutral countries. And they are much easier to hold. No one ever invades other people’s countries in this game. Plus, England is more isolated than other countries in this game. As long as she controls the seas around her, England is safe.

So, I made sure to start investing heavily in England. It also helped that John would upgrade his England shares and I was able to buy them before Adam could. Adam would pay out his England shares and I would pay out my Austria/Italy shares. So I was rolling in money. Which was nice.

But there came a point where I had a dilemma. England was close to ending the game with another taxation. This would get its shares into the x5 multiplier. I had enough money to upgrade my share and purchase the 8 level share. But I would not have enough money to get to the taxation space on the roundel. I was 1 dollar short! (How many times in this game have I been 1 dollar short from buying something or doing something?). Of course, France would have a turn before England and she could attack enough areas to stop England from getting to the 25 spot. Eventually, I just decided that more shares would be a good thing.

What is sad is that, at this point, I was looking to raid the treasuries of Austria and/or Italy. But their coffers were dry. Sigh. That does bring to mind a future strategy: use another nation as a blocker nation. Attack countries that threaten your primary nation. Or, use it for a source of money when you need it.

In the end, I was able to end the game with England. And win it by 5 points. But it was close! I was able to get Austria and Italy’s multipliers into the x3 category.

Midgard

Next up, John brought yet another new game for us to play. It is an area majority game that uses card drafting to deal cards out. There are three large areas. Each area is sub-divided into three or four sections. Each section can hold from three to six people. There are three scoring rounds where you score points for the number of sections that you control in an area (3, 7, 12, 20), 5 points for majority in Asgard. You also get one corresponding token per person on the board. At the end of the game, each set of tokens (one for each area) count as five points.

I was not pleased with the card drafting part of it. If you are dealt some good cards, you only get one and pass the rest away. And if you are passed cards that you don’t want, then oh well. You are screwed. I would rather pick one from a number of face up cards and have that continue around the table. Also, the map is rather small and you have a limited number of actions. So, if you choose a strategy, then there is no guarantee that you will be let alone to implement it. Spots are fought after often. And this has the effect of nullifying your move.

In our game, John leaped up into the lead. He was able to score an area twice. And he scored a lot for going into the doomed areas. Something that the rest of us were avoiding. Because, while you score points for people placed into those areas. You remove those people and put them back into your boat. We had thought that it was better to have them stick around and score for later rounds. But we learned that leaving them on the board was not that important in the long run.

I don’t know. I wasn’t too enamored with the game.

Tichu

To round out the night, we played Tichu. Our team started off at a disadvantage after the first two hands. On the next hand, Adam calls Tichu, wishes for a two and leads a 1-5 straight with the Phoenix for the two. Now, the first reason to wish for a two would be for the possible bomb. However, there was another reason for that wish. And it would be that, if Adam leads again, he is not going to fulfill the wish. So, the wish would be still in effect. And, if the opposing team wins a trick, then they will have to lead a three. Adam hoped that the single three would be led and he would play his single 5 on top of that three.

I made one mistake during the play. Adam leads a pair and has one card left. I have a pair of kings and a two. I play on top of it and led my two hopping that Adam does not have a two. I also know that my Kings are now honors as all of the Aces, Dragon, and Phoenix have been played. I should have let John get control. For, as long as he plays a single or pair, then I would go out.

You can’t fault Doug’s third Tichu call. He had a Dragon, all four Aces, trip tens, trip twos, and 4 5 Jack. Both Adam and I were able to set him. So you should always remember that having really good cards is not always a guarantee of making your Tichu call.

During this game, there was a battle between John and Adam. John over Tichued Adam not once, but twice! Way to be aggressive John!

Space Dealer

John was definitely wanting to hose me tonight. I had wanted to play H2olland for a while now. And yet when I suggested it for a game, John instead recommended Tara, Seat of Kings. Doug was accommodating and was willing to play either. So we settled on a game that all of us had played before: Space Dealer. This time we played with the Gizi cards (victory points for the neutral planets). As I play this game more, I loose the sense of being rushed for time. Next time, I want to play with the advanced cards. Or even with eight people…

H2olland

Peter and Francesca helped me out by playing H2olland. And I was glad I did play it. Not only was it an interesting and thematic game. But, based on the comments I was hearing from the other table, Tara was sounding suspicious.

H2olland is ultimately about planting tulips and then scoring them. But, before that is done, land must be reclaimed from the sea with windmills. There are six species of tulips with victory points ranging from 1 to 6. The level of tulips that you can buy is determined by how many windmills that you have on the board. You get tulips either by purchasing them by trading supplies at the co-op. Or as a reward for reclaiming land from the sea. Tulips are planted much like crops. However, they don’t really do anything during this phase of the game. You do get a worker that is placed on top of the field. These workers tend the tulip fields and will get you victory points during the second half of the game.

You start out with one of each type of resource: beans, carrots, corn, cows, and potatoes. These are placed out on the board during spring time next to your farm houses or your windmills. The crops are harvested during autumn. A weather card is revealed that determines what crops are harvested and other events that may happen (floods, droughts, disease, shortages, or surpluses). If a crop is touched by at least one of your windmills or farm houses, then you get one of the matching tiles from the co-op. So players will want to either touch other’s crops or try and block other player’s from touching their crops. You can buy more farm houses, windmills, dikes, or tulip fields from the co-op during this phase. And you can only store 5 crops/tulips through to spring.

During summertime, the land is reclaimed from the sea. One windmill can only pump out one tile of sea. If there are more tiles of sea than there are windmills, then nothing happens. So, players will place dikes out in order to cut off the excess sea tiles and to allow the windmills to pump out the water. One interesting aspect of this is that there can be more windmills that can pump out a tile than are needed. Only one is used and ties are broken by the start player. So it is possible to steal the glory of pumping out a tile and getting the tulip tile reward for yourself.

The game enters its second phase after the lake has been fully drained or six years. First, we remove all of the crop fields that are connected by at least two or more players. Next, players are allowed to place any remaining farm houses, windmills, or tulip fields. Then, all of the workers are removed from the tulip fields.

Now, the race is on to claim tulip fields. In player order, you are allowed to place one worker on a field that is next to either your farm house, your windmill, or another field that is already claimed by you. So, your goal is to claim the most expensive fields and also to cut off other players from being able to claim fields.

All in all it was an interesting game. And it is one that I should have played sooner.

Age of Renaissance

Next up was a long and meaty game at Great Hall Games. Marty, Adam, Jon, Harry, Brendan, and myself played this game. It was a first for Jon, Brendan, and myself. Although, I have played Manifest Destiny before. I was France and stayed mostly within Central Europe. I didn’t get ships for far too long in this game. I was bummed at the start since one of my cards was a metal card and there were two metal spots next to me. But both Marty and Adam claimed those spots before I could and I could not win them back for quite a while. And this game penalizes you for holding cards and not paying them. You pay triangle points in money for the number of cards that you hold to the next round. So that move cost me more than I made. And later on in the game, when I had conquered all of the region of France, Jon whispers into my ear that he is holding the Black Plague card. Argh! I had forgotten this card and the experience of being almost wiped out by it in Manifest Destiny. … by Jon, in fact! Anyways, I was not in the lead, so he played it against Harry, who was.

I also made another mistake once by not keeping enough money to pay to hold my cards. This cost me a misery spot. Misery spots are essentially negative victory points. And, if you get too many of them, you can automatically loose.

This was an interesting game. And one that I will play again in the future.

Call My Bluff

We started out the night with this filler game. And boy were the dice against me! Apparently the rule of the night was not to call. Instead, you were supposed to move the dice up by one. Because there were far more dice under the cups showing whatever number was declared to exist than you thought. Or were probable to exist.

Ra

Next up was one of the great Knizia auction games. I started out with low numbers. So my strategy was apparent: call Ra as often as possible. Jon was amused that his numbers were pipping mine. So if I put out my 2, Jon would put out his 3. Or if I put out my 6, Jon would put out his 7. But that only works once. My goal was to get some great tiles cheaply.

Adam did have one lucky streak at the end of the second era. He was the last person active and was able to turn up a number of good tiles to fill up the board. Which he bought. And then turn up a couple of tiles before a Ra tile finally appeared. He then bought those because he was one Ra away from ending the second era.

Tichu

Ugh, while I was certainly happy to play Tichu, I was not happy to be slaughtered at it. First Marty started off well. Then, I caught us up. Next, Jon took us down a peg. And then Adam obliterated me. I called Grand Tichu. Unfortunately, Adam had two length 5 bombs, the Dragon, two aces, and some other card. Pretty unstoppable….

Fearsome Floors

We ended out with another light-weight but fun game. This game is very thematic. You are trying to escape a monster before it eats you. The monster follows some very simple rules. Turn towards the closest person that it can see unless people on both sides are equally close. Move one step closer. Eat someone if it lands on top of them. You have three people that cycle through a maximum number of moves (1/6, 3/4, 4/3).

We played this game with the double monster variant. Which turns this game into a shorter and bloodier game. Unfortunately, it was clear that I was going to win. So the group turned to discussing how to stop me. Which I hate. I mean, I am all for each person knowing what to do and making moves to stop the leader. But when one player says “you should move this way to stop this person from winning”, I feel that this ruins the game. It is not fun to play against the group-think. Of course, they stopped me from winning. And Francesca, who was in second place, won the game instead.

Three of us in the game group are Tichu fanatics. So we usually have to force one other person to play with us. John has been that victim often enough. And apparently it has converted him enough to want to hold a Tichu meetup! He planned on spreading the word to new people.

Apparently, mocking does not constitute spreading the word. I wonder who he is talking about here…

Tichu

My first game was with Ed, Susan, and Curt. Susan constantly shies away from Tichu games. So today was an excuse to get back on the horse for her. And boy did she start off strong. Four Tichu calls in a row! Ed had the perfect hand to both stop her once and over-Tichu. I was a little worried at the end. The opposing team caught up thanks to Ed’s Tichu calls. But the Tichu and one/two was enough for a knockout punch.

Tichu

Ed and Susan, being the non-Tichu players that they were, went off to play Yspahan. This left us with two tables. I joined Adam, Betty, and Lauren. Betty and Lauren were both really new to the game. So this game was a basic, learn how the game works, kinda game. Lauren was my partner and unfortunately, she did not realize that this is a partnership game. If you cannot, or are unlikely to, call Tichu, then you should pass your best card to your partner in order to help that person call Tichu. So, for the most of the game, I received the third worst card from Lauren’s hand in the pass.

Tichu

The second game was much like the first. I never got a Tichu hand and we got trounced.

Der Elefant im Porzellanladen

Ed brought out this light filler that he had ordered on the last Adam-Spielt order. Adam suggested Tichu and boy did I regret not playing Tichu instead. But Elefant a new game, and I had to try it out at least once. The mechanics are simple. You can either buy cards that you can score with. Or, you can take a card that forces you to discard cards for money. Maybe it was because we had five players. Or maybe it was because I started last. Whatever the reason, I spent the entire game being forced to make moves that would hose me. The vast majority of the moves were automatic. And on the few times where I had a choice (either take a point card or take a discard card), I felt that my choice had little impact on the game. Ugh. I doubt that I will give this game a second chance.

Struggle for Rome

Ed also brought Struggle for Rome which is the new Settlers game. I definitely wanted to play this one. It fits within the Settlers family quite well. Some negatives about this game were:

• there was not much trading going on
• the board is static. However it does make for a good map of Europe
• there is likely more robbing with the thief in this game
• there are a lot of routes on the map that take time to figure out which one to use

Some positives about this game are:

• On your turn you roll dice until you come up with four unique rolls. Everyone gets the resources for these rolls. This evens out the unprobable dice rolls
• good niggly bits: two tribes, wagons, gold coins
• thematic fit of barbarians invading Rome

It was my first game of this, so I took quite a while figuring out what to do. I didn’t want to make any beginner’s mistakes. Ed and Susan could have helped by pointing out what worked for them in the past and where the good spots were on the board. I tried to go for the 2 point bonus that you get if a tribe conquers all five areas. And I was able to get that for both of my tribes. I probably wasted a turn on both tribes since I got two tokens for one of the five colors. And I was able to get the largest army equivalent (in this game it is the biggest diplomat). So all I needed for the win was to settle in four spots. Which I was able to do. Unfortunately, Doug was able to get 11 points on that turn for the win. Still, it was an interesting game. And one that I will play again.

Tichu

First, I must give credit to John. He called an awful lot of Tichus, and made most of them. He also called a couple of Tichus before the pass. Way to be aggressive, John. Doug also called some Tichus as well. Adam just continued his string of poor card luck and was silent the whole game.

On my second Tichu call, I called Tichu first. John then over-Tichus me. He bombed in with an eight bomb. Later on, I responded with a three bomb. Which Doug promptly over-bombed with a nine bomb. Unfortunately for Doug, he could not pass control over to John and I went out first.