Roads and Boats

Adam wanted to play a meaty game after disc golf and Jon was the only other person interested. We decided upon Roads & Boats. Surprisingly, it was Jon’s first play of it. He did come prepared though having read the rules and printed out a player aid. We decided on this 3 player map (Atlantis) but did not use it like it was designed (where the desert hexes irrigate and the light green hexes go under water).

Adam was his usual goose-thieving self and took some of Jon’s mine output (an iron and a gold). Fortunately, Adam left me alone during the game. During this game, we were all rock poor. And I did not want to spend any of it building walls which could have been easily torn down (everyone was wood rich). I purposely did not extend towards Adam’s section and did not build any more roads than I needed. When I built my stock market, Adam worked his way down to use it. There was really no point in trying to stop him (lots of wood can tare down walls easily). I was trying my best to speed the game up and end it soon. Unfortunately I could not end it one turn earlier and Adam was able to build some stock certificates. However in the end, we were tied in gold/coins/certificates and I out scored him in wonder points. A close game!

We tried some mini-bridge hands after that. But my brain was used up from all the previous meatiness. Adam tried to teach scoring to us but I was retaining none of it…

Today we had five people for gaming and Mike showed up in his Cult Of the New persona with Gheos. While we listened to him read the rules, I played around with taking Doug’s picture with the 85mm lens. Doug did his best to ignore me.

Gheos

This is a tile laying game with a twist. The world is composed of triangular tiles. Civilizations can be placed on the land as long as it is bigger than an island (covering more than two tiles which is called a continent) and as long as no other civilizations exist on that continent. You have three types of scoring opportunities during the game: if an epoch tile is drawn, of if you place a tile that has a temple, or if you decide to use one of your three scoring markers. In the first and last cases, you score by having shares of ownership in a civilization. If an epoch tile is drawn, then you score one point for each share of a civilization that touches a pyramid. If you place a tile that has a temple, then you score points for the corresponding type of symbols on that continent. I believe these types of scoring to be relatively minor. The last type of scoring should get you the most points compared to the others. When you choose to score, you get one point for each share in the civilization that you own. Each of those civilizations score the number of wealth symbols on the continent.

During your turn, you place a tile on the board. It is either placed as a new tile on the map, or it replaces an existing tile. Then you can either start a new civilization or take a share in an existing civilization. Finally, you can choose to play one of your three scoring markers.

Tiles can have a number of features on them. They can have one or two symbols on them. The symbols are wheat, gold cups, or swords. They may have a pyramid. Or they may have a temple that corresponds to a symbol. The land can either be shaped so that it splits continents with a river running through it or it can join continents with all land on two or three sides.

Starting new civilizations can be good. If that action is allowable, then you get a number of shares based on the amount of wheat symbols on the continent. Remember, that this action is instead of taking a share in an existing civilization. Playing a new tile on the map is free. If you replace a tile, then it will cost you a share in any of your civilizations. By replacing a tile, you can cause a couple of things to happen. You can split a civilization up. The civilization marker will go to the side with the most wheat symbols (with ties, you choose). This will weaken a civilization you may not have shares in and hurt your opponents. The other possibility is to join two civilizations. There can be only one civilization in the end though. The civilization with the most swords will win that battle. The loosing civilization is put back off the board and everyone discards their shares in that civilization.

Doug was able to split up my large civilization rather effectively and score many points in the process.

Rheinlander

Next up on the table was an older Knizia game, Rheinlander. For some reason, the group was not groking the rules when I read them. The rules were quite simple, but this translation tended to be rather verbose. And I guess that is what confused them. What was frustrating was when they would ask a question and I would answer it, they would not believe my answer. So I just handed them the rules and let them read it for themselves.

I chose to try and go after the most churches and therefore the archbishop. Unfortunately, the turn I got it, I was attacked and it was taken away. I was too spread out to try and fight for it again. The group seemed turned off this game after it was finished. So I suspect that it will be a year or more before this game comes back to the table.

Forum Romanum

To finish off the night, John was successful in convincing the group to play Forum Romanum. This is a game with simple rules but with meaty consequences. Mike was amusing during this game. At the point of the picture, his yellow senator was not in the lead but rather laying down because it was negative. So I tried to convince him to help me close out a section so that he would not score more negative points. But, towards the end, other people helped him score a number of sections and he eventually came in second (Doug and I were tied for first).

Leonardo da Vinci

Today, I stopped by the post office to pick up my latest lens rental. It is the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L USM lens. I have been dying to try this one for a while now. It is amazing in a number of ways. First, is the price ($1830 versus $340 for a f/1.8 lens). $1500 for a full stop bigger aperture. That is a lot of money for the next better model. Second, is the weight. This lens is 2 pounds (of glass) heaver. Of course, with the weight comes size. The thing seems like it barely fits on the camera. It looks like it is bigger than Dan Becker’s head! One oddity that I noticed right on the bat was that the focus ring wasn’t working. I had to Google to find that the lens needs to be powered on with a half-press before you can focus. Weird. Now I can see why Canon is introducing the 50mm f/1.2. Because the 85mm is not the right lens for 1.6 frame cameras like my EOS 20D. The 1.6 multiplier turns the 85mm into an effective 136mm. Which is too long for me. The 50mm would turn into an 80mm. I had to stand some distance away to take these pictures.

I uploaded both of these pictures to boardgamegeek. This one was denied and the other one was accepted. The reasons were:

• Reason: The image was too blurry.
• Reason: The image was too similar to another image already in the database.
• Reason: The image was irrelevant to the subject.

All I can say is “Huh?!”. First, the image was not blurry. What some people don’t understand is that the depth of field for a f/1.2 aperture is razor thin. In this picture, the depth of field is less than 2 inches deep. Second, I doubt that Adam teaching a game is in the database already. And, third, how can a session of playing/teaching the game be irrelevant? Maybe the two chairs got in the way of the board. I should have moved them out of the way.

This game is still painful in the feeling of wasted inefficiencies you have after playing it. I tried to be better this game, but we just were not producing enough inventions. So I couldn’t plan ahead to have two inventions going during the last two phases. And that cost me the game.

Tichu

In the first Tichu game of the night, the heroic team could not get any points at all. We scored 30 points in seven hands! However, our four Tichu calls and three 1/2s gave us the win! On the first hand of the game, I call Tichu. I called it after Adam bombed with a two wish. Little do I know that Doug had passed bombs to both Adam and Jon. Fortunately for me, Jon bombed too early on a full house lead from me. Adam would have played Queens-full and I would have played Aces full, Jon should have bombed, and I would have been hosed.

I don’t know if I should call the second game a real game. Rehana shows up to take Adam home and we call last hand. Adam makes a Tichu call and most of the points for the win. I believe that our team could have come back for the real win! I demand a replay!!!

Reef Encounters of the Second Kind

Ed had another game day. We had seven people today so we broke up into two tables (4 and 3). Mike and I wanted to play a meaty game (he suggested Reef Encounters). Thankfully, John decided to play with us. The others went off to play fluffy games. We have played Reef Encounter before. So we only needed to figure out what the expansion offered. And it is three things. The first is an additional set of tiles. They are tiles that can be one of two colors (depending on which side is up), tiles with a blue shrimp on them, tiles that count as two when eaten, rock tiles, deep water tiles, and crown of thorn tiles. The second thing are action cards which give you special, one time abilities. And the third thing is an extra shrimp that can help you protect your coral.

This is definitely a game that I will play again. The cards are mostly pretty powerful and they are easy to get. So I am wondering just how much they will affect game play. I will hold off reviewing this until I get more plays under my belt.

Age of Steam: Northern California

Next up on the meaty table was a new Age of Steam variant. It was one that none of us have played, but was one that Mike said “had good reviews”. When we set up the board and looked it over, I knew that this game was going to be extra tough. There were not many good deliveries at all. Everyone started the game by taking one extra share while Ed decided to be different and took two. I ended up bidding enough to go second with Ed going first. So, I waited to see what direction Ed would go. He chose Urbanization, I went for first build, Mike took Locomotive, and Jon camped on turn order. Since I had first bid, I decided to go for the obvious route of connecting San Fransisco to Half Moon Bay. Ed connected Santa Cruz through Scotts Valley to Los Gatos (urbanized to New City C). Mike took a risk and connected San Jose to New City C. Jon saw a brutal opening left by Ed and connected Santa Cruz directly to New City C. This allowed Jon to deliver the black good sitting on Santa Cruz to New City C before Ed could upgrade his train to handle two city deliveries. This essentially took Ed out of the game (although I will give him credit for playing the game to its completion).

I was left alone for most of the game. And I finally broke even after the halfway point in the game (which is a good accomplishment in this game). My only flaw was that I built too many 7 length connections to deliver goods. I was only able to deliver goods that went along 5 of my tracks and one of Ed’s. Jon was able to mostly keep up with me and was finally able to deliver some 5+ goods. He also benefited from other people using his track (unlike me). Mike was never able to deliver long chains. The best he could do was length 3 goods.

Settlers of Catan

With six people, we broke out Settlers of Catan. Instead of using dice, we used the new deck of dice with events. The events (when they happened) were mostly bad. I liked the deck of dice because it evens out the rolls. All but 5 of the 36 dice combinations will be rolled. With dice, you can have improbable events happen like never rolling an eight (this would suck for your houses on that 8 tile).

I tried to go for different numbers when I placed my initial two houses. Unfortunately, my numbers were not the best (9, 6, 12 and 3, 5, 10). It was the best that I could do going fifth. When I could finally build my first two roads, I picked a spot off to the right. So I was extremely worried when John built there as well. Fortunately for me, I was able to build my house there first. And I was able to grab and keep the longest road from Jon. But Jon was too much the powerhouse in this game and he easily won.

Tichu

Paul wanted to play Tichu, so I stayed late and happily obliged. Paul made the mistake that all new players to this game make. And that is not calling Tichu when you have a Tichu hand. But that skill takes time to acquire. I could have called Tichu one more time in this game but I did not when I thought that it was likely that there was a bomb out there (there was: Ed had a 10-bomb, sigh). Ed’s Tichu call was stopped by two bombs. He could have handled one bomb but not two.

Complica

John invited me over for some Thanksgiving dinner (and some gaming). I knew that he liked two player, abstract, wooden games. So I brought over some which I have bought but never played. The first game that we picked was Complica. It is a slightly meatier version of Connect-4. Players shove their pieces into one side of the board trying to connect four in a row (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal). You can place the piece in any of the four rows except for the row where your opponent has placed. The only exceptions to this rule is when there are three contiguous pieces of your opponent’s in a row or if there is no other free row left.

A short and simple game.

Prisma

The second game is played on a 5 x 5 grid with 5 different colored sets of five pieces. You start out with one of each color and the rest are placed in the middle. You place a piece on an empty spot and pick up any remaining piece. Play continues until every piece has been placed. The score is based on triangle numbers (1, 3, 6, 10) for connected pieces of a color. You are trying to connect pieces in rows and your opponent is trying to connect pieces in columns.

Another short and simple game.

Catena

For the last of the series, we played Catena. This game uses a majority scoring based on spots in a column. The columns are arranged in a diamond. Spots are filled one at a time. For each location, players simultaneously reveal one of a set of numbered tokens (0 – 10, *). The higher number wins the battle with the exception that a 1 will always beat a 10. The * always looses but you get to replace one of your already played pieces with that one. In the case of a tie, you choose again. If still tied, then the spot is replaced with a neutral piece. After all of the pieces have been filled, the majority in a column gets one victory point (ties broken by the sum of the numbers).

Here, John’s un-crated son, Clint, poses for a picture.

Aqua Romana

The last game was Aqua Romana. Which was a game where you build aqueducts and score them based on their length. Kinda like the Tron lightcycle game but set in old-school Rome. One of the interesting bits about this game is that only one player can occupy a spot on the victory track. So when someone scores an 11 long aqueduct, another person scoring an 11 long aqueduct would score the next empty spot further back along the board (with two spots available on 7 and 3).

The Downfall of Pompeii

Ed and Susan came tonight for one of their biannual gaming fixes. Six is a hard number to resolve — do you play one game, or two? We chose the two route with a heavily meaty table (Neuland) and a light meaty table (Pompeii). I chose Pompeii because I haven’t played it before and would like to try it at least once.

This game is quite thematic. You are trying to save your villagers before the volcano erupts. And you get to sacrifice other people’s villagers into that volcano during the beginning portion of the game. There is a nice, large plastic volcano as part of the game board. Believe me, I was tempted to put some baking soda and vinegar into that thing…

The game is divided into two phases. During the first phase, you place your villagers onto the board by playing one of four cards and drawing up. Obviously, you want to put them into buildings that are close to the exits of the village. When you place a villager into a spot that is already occupied, you can place relatives equal to the number that were there. This gives you more chances to successfully place people who can escape this nightmare situation. If a puff of smoke card is drawn, you can choose one villager and toss that person into the volcano in a vain attempt to appease the gods. Don’t forget to make a show of dragging the helpless villager up the slope of the mountain…

Ed started out by sacrificing one of my people in a prime building location. I planned to retaliate. But my chance didn’t come around for a while. By the time I drew a smoke card, Ed had been thoroughly picked on by his family and I felt bad. So I chose some one else.

Once the second volcano card is drawn, we immediately move into the second phase of the game. Now, on your turn, you draw a lava chip and place it on the board. You may then move two people. A person can move as many spaces as there were people on their start location. If they move outside of the village (past the gates), then they are turned into a victory point.

There are six types of lava. And the first of each type must be placed on its starting location on the board. After that, each piece can be placed orthogonally next to other pieces of its type. If a piece of lava goes on top of some people, then too bad. Those people are burnt to a cinder and die. They are taken off of the board and are thrown into the volcano. The game ends when the last lava piece is drawn and placed.

If there is a tie, then the tie is broken by whoever has the fewest of their pieces in the volcano. It is a short, simple, and lightly meaty game. Thankfully, the Rozmiareks were mainly picking on each other and I was able to sneak past the lava flows to win the game.

Ta Yü

Susan had to leave to pick up her son after a basketball game was over. I say make him wait there and work on his homework! So, Ed and I played a two player game. He chose Ta Yü. This is a game that I played once long ago during the now defunct Russcon.

This is a simple tile laying game where you are trying to create routes from one side of your board to the other side. All while your opponent is simultaneously trying to do the same.

I started off slow and was not trying to connect either of my sides. Ed got off to a good run by setting up three routes on one side of his board. When I noticed that a route was going to make it to the other side for Ed, I shook myself awake. I started to place pieces that would hose Ed on that other side. And I was pretty successful by cutting off a rather large section of the board. Now my goal was to make connections on both of my sides before Ed could retaliate. Thankfully, I was able to draw enough pieces to make connections for me and Ed was not able to hurt me with his pieces. This gave me enough points for the win.

Tichu

To finish off the night, we played some Tichu. I had the option to take Jon as my partner or cut for partners. I chose Jon. Little did I realize that that was a very bad choice!

On the first hand, John calls Tichu and goes out first. Usually that is not a problem. Of course, when someone on the opposing team calls Tichu, you try to set that person. When that person goes out, you must now really try hard and stop the teammate from going out second. So, when your partner is currently winning a trick, and you can overtake that trick. You must decide if you are guaranteed to go out second. If you believe so, then do it. Otherwise, let your partner win that trick. Unfortunately for me, I was winning a trick and Jon overtook it. Adam was able to take the next trick that Jon played and went out second. If Jon had not played, I would have been able to go out second. The sad thing is that this happened twice during the game. Sigh.

On the last hand of the game, I called Grand Tichu. Little did I know that my partner was actively playing against me. He passed me a two and then wished for an Ace! John had none and I was forced to play one of mine. I gave up at that point and called the game.

E & T

With four players comes a lot of good gaming options. Our group was slow off the start in picking a game. So when John suggested E & T, Adam latched on like a bulldog. This was a slower game with not many battles. Fortunately, I was able to win most of them. By green leader was kicked out in an internal conflict. Adam was speeding the game’s end up by discarding tiles. He was looking for tiles to support his goals. Too bad he didn’t find any. The game ended with some tight scoring. Two people were tied for first and two people for second. It came down to second and third resources. And I had more than Doug for the win.

Mykerinos

John also suggested this game. I think that it was the first time where we played with all of the correct rules. In the beginning, I was trying to get one of each kind of Patron. And I was placing men in the Museum so that I would score at least two for each Patron. John jumped on the 5 spot for Sir Brown. Towards the end of the game, I switched strategies and went for a lot of Lady Violets. I secured 4 of them and got Doug to give me another one when he went into the Museum. This was enough for the win.

San Juan

Doug left, so we were down to three. Out came San Juan and Adam latched onto this one to avoid playing any fluff-like game. I didn’t do so well in this game. My special building were not working so well for me. And when I was finally able to build the big Triumphal arch, I was not able to draw all three monuments.

Minibridge

We played a couple of hands of minibridge to finish out the night. John was getting the luck of the draw and was having most of the card points. Phear my 8 points!

Today was a good day at 42. I made a 2 mark bid. And I was able to set a 37 point bid after bidding 36.

Its good that I can at least play 42. Of course, I would much rather play Tichu. But that seems to be life for the moment. The 42 group is actually pretty successful. They play all five days of the week. And they have an attendance of 4-9 people per day.

42 does have some problems. This is another game where the luck of the shuffle exists. Sometimes, you just get dealt bad “cards” or bones as they are called in this game. Other negatives about this game:

• 1) The round is over quickly. Sometimes before all of the bones have been played. Either the other team has been set, or your team claims the round. This can be confusing if you are a beginner. Every one else agreed with the analysis and you are still trying to figure out what happened.
• 2) The group uses two varients that make the play even easier. The first is the lead off variant. You can turn a weak bone into a stronger one by leading it as the opposite of what it would normally be. If you have the 2:2 and the 6:2, you can lead the 6:2 as a two (2:6). This converts the weak 6 bone into a winning 2 bone. The second is the splash/plunge variant. If your partner has 3 or more doubles, then they can call splash (with 3) or plunge (with 4 or more). It is assumed that they have the double 6. If the bid succeeds, then you get to call trump and lead. You lead your winners and then transfer control over to your partner with a 6.
• 3) A game is only 7 marks (the number of strokes to write “ALL”). A bid can be more than one mark which only makes it over quicker.
• 4) This group loves to play the “put away game”. This is not related to 42. They turn the act of putting the bones back into the container as a game. On your turn, if you have the lowest bone, you put it in the box. Otherwise you draw a bone from someone else. This turns into a major mind game with a lot of kingmaking thrown in. Not my type of game. They could have played another round of 42 in the time that it took them to put the game away.

Gloria Mundi

Another playing of Gloria Mundi for me. I am trying to see if this game is not flawed. This time, I am trying to keep my resource cards alive as long as possible in order to gather more income. However, we played this game with 6 people. That seems like a lot of people. You only get three white and yellow cards. Things went okay at first. Everyone was paying off the barbarian. However, when it got around to Adam, he didn’t pay off the barbarian. At this point, Mike and John were able to build victory point generation building. So Adam was trying to set up a group-think situation where we could hurt him. However, he had to work through both Jon and myself before getting at Mike. And both Jon and myself have different opinions on what is the best course of action for ourselves. He proved to be unsuccessful at his attempts.

Towards the end of the game, it really broke down for me. I was able to generate three greens and one victory point for every green card that was played. I also had one yellow card with a yellow building and one white card with a white building. In my hand were only green cards. Every time that it was my turn to play, there were no green building cards in the display! So I did nothing. This went on for four turns. I collected so many green blocks that we ran out. And yet no green building was seen. How very flawed!

The order of winners in this game corresponded to the victory point cards that they were able to buy. Every other building card was essentially worthless. This game needs some fixing. Either the ability to trade cubes for other cubes, or score points for cubes at the end, or auction off building cards, or something.

During the game, Adam is bored and plays with his white peace chiklets.

Mu

John had to leave early. So we had 5 people for a game of Mu. Adam and Jon are both aggressive bidders. Here, my 8776 is not worthy of attraction from a potential chief. Mike though was. His 99997 allowed Adam and Jon to over bid even more. Jon won that battle with a 9 card bid. He called green as trump and Adam called 1s. Sadly, he was set by 4.

Tichu

Ahh, Tichu was next when Mike left. The first picture is my hand when Doug calls Tichu. Say what Dougie? You know you need some control cards in your hand, don’t you? I was able to help him make his Tichu call and go out second for the 1-2. The next picture is Jon’s hand for his Tichu call. Pretty unstoppable.

Evo

John held another day-gaming session. Since I was on vacation and had nothing better to do, I went. Susan showed up. And Ed took off work to play with us. So John did some research and came up with a list of 5 player games based on Ed’s recommendations on the ‘geek and John’s games that he has not played. Evo was first up. I always like to play it. I may not win it. But it can be fun at times to play.

Especially when you have horns. But the auctions were such that I got another horn. Over specialization is a bad thing. You really want a balanced creature. Able to move fast, have lots of babies and survive in inhospitable climates. Which is the opposite of my creature. I could only do one thing — attack. And I went on a rampage. Much to Ed’s dissapointment. He wanted to be left alone but he looked like a tasty morsel to me. The only problem with attacking is that you are not guaranteed to always win. So you should only attack as a last resort. My clan slowly died off. So sad.

Il Principe

Next up on the table was a game that Mike had bought a while ago. We played it once (incorrectly). And then never played it again. So it was mostly a new experience to me. Not one that I liked either. It went on too long for the type of game that it was.

Loopin’ Louie

Ed and Susan had to leave. So did Gina when her loud and annoying alarm went off (reminding her to pick the kids up from school). John tried to tempt me to stay to play another game. However, I was leaning against that. But I spied the title of “Loopin’ Louie” and I wondered what it was. John takes it out and sets it up for me. So we play it. Its a cute manual dexterity game of trying to knock down the other person’s chickens with a common plane. The only thing that you can do to affect the plane is to spring it up in the air when it passes you. If you time that move perfectly, you can bounce the plane up and over the opponent’s spring and have it hit their chicken. A little bit off, and you can have it go far enough to not let the opponent get a swing at it. Mostly, you just take a stab at it. Which is returned by the opponent. When Clint showed up from school, he jumped right in. I was out early. So I helped him get his father out in revenge.

Just the sort of game that would make Adam’s head explode in a cloud of fluff.