Guh, my truck is getting so old!!!! Everything is too spread out around here.

On the drive out to South Oklahoma, I mean Liberty Hill, I passed a Circus. What a rainy and miserable day for a Circus.

Hornochsen

Ed held a game day. Its been a while since I have been to one. We started off with Hornochsen — a milder form of Take 6. You have a hand of card to get rid of. You are trying to avoid negative cards. And you place the cards following simple rules of closeness. But it plays differently. You still have a sense of impending doom. However it is very watered down and dampened. In this game, I had no opportunity to take stacks of 5 positive cards. So I waited it out. I had a feeling that others would soon be forced to take the stacks which held the big negative cards. And it worked out that way for me. I ended up finishing the game with a small positive score. In this game, that is a good thing.

Gloria Mundi

After playing two very flawed versions of this game, I had to give it one more chance. Rio Grande does not publish bad games. However, after playing it, I think we could have played it better. You see, this game is a return on investments game. And you should be trying hard to keep your income generating cards in front of you. Instead of discarding them in order to hose your opponents.

Leonardo da Vinci

My second playing of this game. And basically, the same thing happened. You finish the game and punish yourself for playing it inefficiently. You do not want to have, in your possesion, unused resource cards. They are useless and you have wasted money and meeples to get them. Also, you want both your labs to finish a work before the game ends. If one or both are idle, it costs you victory points. The problem with this game is you just cannot predict which invention cards will come up and then properly plan for them. Yeah, you can look at the next four in the queue and reorder them. But other people will as well.

Here, Ed takes a picture a picture like this.

Nexus Ops

Adam got me to play Nexus Ops. Which is a positive rating for me. He likes meatier games. So if he is willing to play a dice-fest game, there must be something to it. And I didn’t mind playing the game at all. It reminded me a lot of Samurai Swords. There is a heirarchy of troops that you can buy. The more expensive hit first and are more likely to hit. The cheapest hit last and rarely hit. You manuever over territory to acheive secret objectives that you collect. And it is relatively quick to play. I liked it.

My problem was that I was to timid in attacking others. I was building up for a big fight. But Carl was able to win the game before I would. I should have went for it one round earlier.

Gloria Mundi

John brought Gloria Mundi into Extreme Pizza for us to play. He wanted to play outside. But since I had spent all of disc golfing outside and we were going to go disc golfing again, I opted to play indoors. So John explained the rules to us and we started to play. However, the game was extremly broken (I would call it flawed). The game was progressing. But no one was building a building that would last more than one turn. Looking at the rules again, we noticed that you start with resources. So we tried it again. But it was still broken (Gloria Flawedi). We kept playing and, every time it got to my turn, I couldn’t shake the flawed feeling. There was no good move for me and I could not make a building. Finally, someone spotted that we start out with one of each resource card down (or built). This would at least provide some income to bribe the barbarians with and help protect your buildings. But would it fix this game?

Keytown

First up was another old game and one we haven’t played in quite a while: Keytown. Of course, we had to read the rules, for I didn’t remember anything about it. And, after we answered all of the questions that came up during the rules discussion, we started playing the game. This is an area majority game where the pieces that you use for majority are townspeople. You start out with 6 level 1 people. You can increase them in two ways. First, you can birth more of them in cottages. Second, you increase their levels in villages. Both of these actions can be fought against by your opponents. In the cottages, the person who has the lowest count will have two babies (level 1 people). For ties, both people will have one baby. In the villages, only the three people who have the lowest count will be promoted. Ties are bad here — no one is promoted. The count is determined by the level of the person and the number of blocks that are “supporting” the person. Blocks are counted as one apiece except when one time modifiers (a x2 or a x0) are played in an area. The block are “mined” from 5 different resource locations around the board. Players who put the most numbers (counting their levels) will mine first with ties resolved by nearest to the start player. Keep in mind that there are limited numbers of blocks in the game. Since blocks are bad things and work against you when you are promoting or birthing your people, the reward for having them played on your people is that you get to keep them for later rounds. After four rounds of play the game is over. Your final score is the square of each of the levels of your people minus any victory points that you used to bid for start person. The bidding for start player is a meta-action. It will interrupt normal play and, once it is resolved, it will change the player order immediately.

The last round was quite the free-for-all. I should have realized that my people were not going to be promoted to level 3 and I should, instead, have concentrated on birthing more people. Jon (green) has only two people in one town and concentrated all of his cubes in stopping both of my people in that same town. He won that battle but I think that he should have put his twos in that town (9+9 vs 4+4). In another town, Mike (yellow) was making sure that I was not promoted. Fortunately, I was able to retaliate and keep his person from being promoted as well. In the third town, I was lucky and people left me alone. The scores were all close at the end of the game. What hurt Jon and Mike was the bidding victory points for start player. Jon went from 1st to 2nd and Mike went from a tie for 3rd to 4th. I went from 2nd to 1st since I bid 0!

Tichu

John leaves which left us with four people. Hrm, what game can we play with four people? Do I even need to ask this question??

What would you expect with two experts versus two newbies? The answer would be a total slaughter. But I think that some of it was the luck of the card draw. Still, we won the game by two winning conditions: 1000 points and 1000 point differential! If you remove all of the tichu bets and 1/2 points, our team only scored 200 points more than the other…

Zenix

Since John is only working six days during the month of October, he decided to hold a day gaming session. We started out with this wooden abstract three player game. Your goal is to build the longest path by dropping logs to form a triangle. John managed to tie me for longest path, but my 2nd longest path was bigger than his. Which gave me the win.

Great Wall of China

Our next game was the English version of Chinesische Mauer. The artwork is not as good as the German one. In the middle of the game I was in a two way fight with both John and Gina. Not a good position to be in. But somehow I managed to eek out a win.

Leonardo da Vinci

Ahh, the new meaty game that just came out. Certain members of the cult-of-the-new were lusting after playing this. So I was happy when Susan brought it out. This is a game where you want to be as efficient as possible. And when the game is over, you beat yourself up over the wasted inefficiencies. However, for some reason, the rules and game play did not blow me away in my first playing of it. Who knows what this game is lacking. But I’ll give it another chance.

Blue Moon City

Another playing of this lighter Knizia game. I still haven’t won it or even come close to winning it. But I don’t mind playing it. It is kind of random what cards you draw and what buildings other people go after. So I don’t think there is much long term strategy to this game. Only tactical playing based on what cards you hold now. There is an end-game problem though. During my two playings of it, when it came close to the end of the game, one person set another person up to win the game. I don’t think that they realized it at the time of the playing, or maybe they just didn’t care. But it would be interesting to see how it would play out if everyone knew just what moves other people needed for the win.

Die Weinhändler

To finish off our game day, Susan brought out this older game. The only difference between the German version and the English is the little plastice wine bottles that mark player colors. They didn’t bother to change the name (umlauts anyone), the decimal point (a comma versus a period), or the currency (Euros versus Dollars). In this game, I knew I was hosed from the start. I did not have a good selection of wine bottles that I could use in future auctions and I didn’t have any good matching bottles. The sad thing is that there is not much you can do to alter your situation.

Chinesische Mauer

About time. We finally play this light Knizia game about helping to build the Great Wall of China. There are four groups of victory point chits that people compete for majority presence. On the beginning of your turn, you check for majority in each group of chits. If your card point total is more than everyone else, you can place one the victory point chits onto one of your cards. This adds to your total the negative amount on the chit and it protects the card from being buried by another card. If both victory chits are owned, then players score them, the cards are removed, and new victory chits are revealed. Next, you have two actions. You can either place a group of cards with the same number next to one of the groups. Or you can draw a card. The cards are numbered from 1 to 3 and have special powers. For example, there is the Nobleman which changes every other card to be valued 1. The Dragon can lay over a card and remove it from the game.

All in all, it is a light, simple, and quick game to play — a nice filler to start out a gaming session.

Vinci

John brought this game out on the table. Another game that we rarely play. Especially with a decent version that is playable on the web. Only Jon and myself had played this game before, so a rules explination was in order. Once we started playing, Jon and myself jumped out into the lead. But it was clear that Jon had the better civilizations. Jon’s declining civilizations were scoring him a lot of points. And everyone left them alone. This, of course, gave him the win.

Vinci can be mean sometimes. Here, Mike hoses John by declaring a truce with him and then surrounding him.

Mu

To finish off the night, we played two hands of Mu. On the first hand, we were able to set Adam’s two bid. For the next hand, bidding was fierce. Jon went for a bid of seven. Late into the bidding war, I showed two nines. This was part of the reason why Jon thought he could up it to seven. And we made it by capturing 48 triangles (Jon could have bid it up to 9!). This catapulted me into first and Jon into second.

Tahj Mahal

It has been a while since I have played this classic game from Knizia. Marty likes it as well, so it was easy to bring it to the table. For this game, I decided to concentrate on elephants. I picked and chose my battles, concentrating on gems. I also skipped a lot of battles and, as a result, had a large hand. There were enough cards for my final two battles and for a large bonus at the end. This was enough to give me the win.

Tichu

Marty had to leave soon, but he had enough time for a quick game of Tichu. Unfotunately, our team had the luck-of-the-Ed. The one time I had a halfway decent hand, I was set. I had the Dog, two Aces, and the Mahjong with other good cards. I called Tichu before the pass and passed my partner the Dog. I wished for an Ace which hit my partner. He dogged me back but I could not go out first. Sigh…

Other games played:

Neuland

Viking Fury

Tim had a game day to both celebrate his birthday and to sell of some of his large collection of games. So the group went to eat lunch at Extreme Pizza after disc golf. Afterwards, we stopped here for some gaming. I brought out Viking Fury to the table. The Ragnar Brothers started out by producing games on tea towels. And this is one of them. On the plus side, the game is about Vikings, so there is possibilities for some role playing. But the negatives of this game really dampen my enthusium of it. There are quests that you perform that provide a sense of history of the Viking people. But it is hard to complete them yourself in one turn. If you do not finish a scenario, it is really easy for other people to just swoop in and steal that card from your grasp. It kind of unmotivates you to try and perform one of the requirements for those cards. Since it makes it easier for someone else to finish.

Still, I am glad I played it. I would place this game into the once-a-year category of games.

El Grande

We continued the old game theme by bringing out El Grande to the table. Another game that has sadly been ignored by the Cult of the Newists. It seems like that was one of the first area control games that I have been introduced to way back when. But, perhaps my nostalgia is affecting my memories. And it hasn’t lost anything from its old age, either. There is still a lot of tough choices that you are forced to make in the battle for royal favor.

Tichu

But we cannot forget Tichu either. Mike was willing to play once again so Jon and myself took advantage of the opportunity. The heroic team jumped out to an early lead. But we learned to not count the opposing team out. They were able to claw their way back into the lead and race to the finish for the win. The luck just left us and we were unable to score any points to get us the win. Above is one of my two Tichu hands.

And here is what happened: I was able to play my 5, King, and Ace. I then lead my loosing full house. Jon plays over it with Jacks-full. I bomb with my 9s. Jon responds with an over-bomb of 10s. Mike over-bombs again to wrest control away from Jon. Mike had passed me the Phoenix and I was left with two cards (the other being the Dragon). Mike had two choices to lead next and he correctly chose the single card. John then wakes up and over Tichus me! I play the Dragon and then Phoenix to go out first.

Mike likes to sing songs in a stream of conscienceness. Because of this, people call him Mike-Pod. So, in an effort to quiet him, I challenged him to sing a song that contains the word “chocolate”. Mike could not think of a song. But John could:

Laughing gas these hazmats, fast cats,
Lining them up like ass cracks,
Ladies, homies, at the track
It’s my chocolate attack
Shit, I’m stepping in the heart of this here
Care bear bumping in the heart of this here
Watch me as I gravitate,
Yo, we gonna go ghost town,
This motown,
With yo sound
You’re in the place
You gonna bite the dust
Can’t fight with us
With yo sound
You kill the Inc.
So dont stop, get it, get it
Until you’re cheddar header
Yo, watch the way I navigate,

The Gorillas, Feel Good Inc.

Mike still claims that there is no song that contains the word chocolate…

Time for more large pictures… I used the Canon TS-E 24mm lens to take a panoramic picture of my game shelves. with available lighting. There is a large window in that room, but it is in a protected location and only receives indirect lighting. You can really tell how the light is stronger at one end and trails off to the end that has that large window.

Click on them for the larger versions. I try to cram as many games in those bookshelves as possible. So I usually sort them by size instead of similiar games or titles or authors or whatever. This causes problems for some of our game members.

Merchants of Amsterdam

Tonight we concentrated on older games. And first on the table was a game that I don’t think that I have played yet (sad but true). This is a majority game where there are three main areas where you fight over (the city of Amsterdam, the four seas, and the commodity market). On a player’s turn, they flip a card over and assign it to one of three places. One place is the discard pile (no one gets to use it). One place is on the auction block (everyone has the chance to bid on it). And the other place is only for the current player’s use. For the auction, this game has a rather unique auction clock. It slowly counts down from 200 to 50. The person who stops it first gets to buy it. And since I have heard stories about how fragile it is, I decided to keep it safe. I would start it ticking and then someone would shout out “stop” and I would stop the clock. The only problem was if multiple people said “stop” at the same time. And to resolve that tie we used modsies (much to the chagrin of Gravitt).

In this game, everyone bid way too much for cards. But since everyone was doing it, I don’t think that that mattered as much. Prices were relative. The final scoring round was very tense with Jon winning the game.

Ursuppe

Ahhh, Ursuppe, the game of poop… teheheh… how I love to say that. Excuse me, sir. Please take that chit somewhere else… hohoho.

Its been a while since have played this game. And of course you forget which combinations of genes you should go for. Adam went for tentacles and substition, Jon went for movement I and Life Expectancy, Mike and I went for Parasitism. Which put fear into the others. And, of course, we ran into a rules question. The rules state “For each Foodstuff cube less an amoeba needs a foreign amoeba on the same square, who’s owner pays 1BP to the bank instead.” Mike and I took that to mean that one person could pay 2BPs for us. While everyone else took it to mean that we needed two amoebas for 1BP each.

Still a fun game to play after all these years.