Exxtra

We started off the night with a filler game while we waited for everyone to arrive. It was not much competition. Doug and I were fighting for first and the others were fighting for any points.

Easy Come, Easy Go

We still didn’t have everyone yet. So we brought out another “E” filler. This one was tense towards the end. Everyone had two of the goals in front of them and were fighting over the final one.

Elven Gold

Since we have already played two E games, we decided on another E-named game. This is one we have never played before. So Ed was already in a bad mood. He doesn’t like learning games on the fly. Fortunately, this one turned out to be easy to learn and play. It is essentially a bluffing game. You want to mine for victory points. And you have to decide if the markers on your spot contain a broken shovel on them. If they do, then you loose your equipment and get no points. Otherwise, you can either get the points on the space with a shovel or twice that many with a pick ax (which costs three dollars to buy versus the one for the shovel). I was able to guess correctly most of the time for the win. Amusingly, at one point in the game, Mike was out of money. So he was unable to bluff in where he put his bad marker. Since I went after him in turn order, I was able to dig where he dug on the spot which only contained his marker (which he knew was good).

Elfenland

To finish out the night’s E-theme, we picked out another E-named game by the same designer: the classic Elfenland. This appeals to the computer programmers because it involves the traveling salesman problem. You want to visit every spot on the board without duplicating stops. Susan was fond of Unicorns that night.

Vinci

Well, I broke down and bought a new lighting system. Two Alien Bee lights. And boy do they pump out light. My old pictures were usually (ISO 400, 1/60sec, f/5.6 exposure compensation pushing the default depth of field out to a more reasonable value) and now I can get (ISO 100, 1/250sec, f/10). That is like 8 times more light. I do need to halve it sometime, the flash is rather intense (even through a white umbrella and bounced off of the ceiling). Since it is lit 100% from the flash, shutter speed no longer matters. I can push it up to the max sync speed of 1/250sec. This will freeze the action at the table.

We started off the night with the classic Vinci. I haven’t played this one over the web in ages. Ed still does and he was able to use his skill to come out ahead of me at least. Although Jon was able to win it in the end.

Tichu

We surged right out of the gate. Two tichus and one-twos gave us momentum. And yet, the other team flew by us at the end. Pushing out their chest just far enough out to break the ribbon.

McMulti

The group started off with McMulti. Which Ed has never played! And, of course, after we had finished, Ed spots numerous rules mistakes. So sad. But nothing major was broken since all of the players are affected equally. It did have the effect of causing more news events than should have happened. News is almost always a bad thing. And in this game, it really reduced us to the bare bones. But I was eventually able to slowly work my way out of the hole and build up a gas selling economy. I was able to buy cheap gas on the Foreign and Domestic markets and sell it to the Consumer market. I was pretty much unstoppable at this point and everyone called the game.

Tichu

After not completing the previous game, we tried for a game of Tichu. But even this game was not completed. Sigh.

For Sale

Ed held a somewhat spontaneous game day during the holiday weekend. So attendance was rather low. But I didn’t mind since I was able to play games that I liked. I arrived just in time to play For Sale. It is a quick filler game that should not be sold.

Wabash Cannonball

Ed and Susan went off to play some Ameritrash game. But fortunately, Wabash Cannonball was easy to bring to the table. And it is a quick game too. Or at least it can be when everyone has played it before. My only failure is getting this game played immediately again. Apparently, people don’t see the many different outcomes and there are too many other games to choose from for the next game.

King of Siam

But we played this interesting three player game. It was a tight game. First the yellow then blue then red then back to blue factions looked like they would end up on top. Paul backed the red faction too much. None of us could contest ownership from him so we both conspired another color to win. In the end, the yellow faction would win. I needed to get ahead of the other guy so that he would be forced to play his card after me. I ended up out of cards. And he could not play his last card because we would be tied in ownership and the last tie breaker was that the person who played the card last would lose. So he could do nothing but watch the battle resolve and let me win.

Imperial

I was happy when Imperial hit the table. I initially screwed up on the rules explanation and forgot that money is deposited in the country’s bank during taxation. We figured that out when every country’s bank was run dry. Fortunately, we only taxed once this game. So we played the correct way on the next turn.

This game has one flaw to it (ignoring that slow players turn this into a long game): you can lose ownership of any country. You then have nothing to do but watch while others play the game. This should not be a bad thing. As long as whoever takes control of your country runs it correctly, you will not lose standing in the game. You should have money in hand and sit and bide your time to buy any share you want. There are threads on the geek about this. Unfortunately for both Ed and Susan, I wrested control from them towards the end of the game. They went off to play a two player game and I ensured that they could not make enough money to be a threat to me. When the game ended, they both tied for second place.

I hope this experience did not sour Ed and Susan to put Imperial on their trade list.

Viva Pamplona

We finished off the night with a quick game of Viva Pamplona. It is a light and thematic game. And I was lucky enough to be able to roll dice that could ensure that I bully a lot of people around for victory points. The bull was just not cooperating for the other way to get victory points. He quickly ran off at the end leaving everyone but Susan out of the stadium. My hoards of bravery points easily gave me the win.

Monastery

We started off the night (well, day really) with the new Ragnar Brothers game about monks working in a Monastery to complete their prayer. The background was never explained to me, so I have no idea why three different factions of monks are competing to write their special prayer. This game is almost at the other end of the spectrum of rules cohesiveness as Antiquity. The special cases and different phases did not mesh at all.

It is hard to tell after one playing, but, with three players, it seems easy to get hosed. Initially, Ed was start player. He would move onto a spot needing four monks to complete and put two monks there. I would then fill it up leaving Susan all alone with not much to do. This happened a number of times. There is also a feedback mechanism to this game where you can buy more monks to bring in more money. Well, if you didn’t get enough money in the beginning of the game, you are now behind the curve to others who were able to afford those monks.

Another aspect to denying players is to not help them complete a tile. There were situations when Ed places some monks on a tile, I could help him complete it, but I see that if I choose not to, then there is no way that Susan can work with Ed (even if she wanted to). I can get as much money elsewhere and deny Ed money.

And, just to pour salt on the loser’s wounds, once someone completes their prayer, they can now penalize other people’s prayers for a cheaper value than it would cost that person to place it themselves.

Tichu

We drove to Chuy’s for some Tichu and Tex-Mex thinking that it would not be that crowded yet. Boy, were we wrong. I should have known better since it was a holiday tomorrow and that tonight would be a virtual Friday. But we were seated quickly.

Canal Mania

We finished out the night with another Ragnar Brothers game. It is a lighter Age of Steam — although not quicker than AoS. We played with the second revision of the board (I don’t really recall the first version being that broken). I was able to jump out to a huge lead in the beginning of the game and stay there. There were a lot of delivery cubes on my tracks and not that many on other people’s tracks.

For tonight, we had a good selection of games on the table. We decided to go with Tinners’ Trail.

Tinners’ Trail

Martin Wallace’s new game is out. This one is about mining Tin and Copper in Cornwall, England. While it is not as heavy as Age of Steam, it was an interesting game with hard trade offs. At the end of each round, you can convert money into victory points. The amount of victory points that you can buy for the same amount of money decreases as the rounds pass. At the end of the game (round 4), you get half as much victory points than you could have gotten on round one. Besides victory points, you use money to purchase new mines and to actually mine. These mines come with an amount of tin, copper, and water on them. The number of water cubes determine how much it costs to mine each cube of tin and copper. So you want to spend turns reducing the water on that spot. Keep in mind that each time you mine, more water comes back to haunt you.

The Hanging Gardens

Next, we tried another new game. This time you build “gardens” in order to collect tiles for victory points. The problem is that you are forced to pick up a card and you are forced to play it someone on your plot legally. This usually hoses your plans. I was going for two different sets. I was not that efficient in building either. But I was able to complete one set and pick up the bonus tile for that set for the win.

Pilliars of the Earth

Ed and Susan brought over the new expansion for Pillars of the Earth (the game based on a book). I think it worked well with five people. And the expansion seemed to fit the same style and theme of the game.

Ed and Susan also brought some muy spicy WAAASSSAAABI nuts (four versions. and yes, the product is actually named that). Two thumbs up!

Big Three

We ended the night with a few hands of Big Three. In the hand that you see, Doug bids three before I get a chance. And here I am sitting with all four of the three cards! We shall see, Dougie. We shall see about that!

The picture was also quite technically challenging. I must have taken a number of different photos. It is hard to light the picture based on the cards in the foreground compared to Doug in the background. Of course, I focused only on the cards leaving Doug a little blurred out. There is only so many attempts that you can make…

Locomotive Werks

I was happy when John Bohrer offered to sell me a copy of Locomotive Werks. It is a train themed game where you invest in train producing factories. Dice will determine the market demand. But you can moderate their impact by diversifying and moving production capabilities around. It was an interesting game. Marty was the run away leader.

Big Three

We finished the night playing Big Three instead of Neuroshima Hex. Sigh. Maybe some another time I will finally play that game!

Outpost

There were six people for gaming tonight, so we split into two tables of three. Ed, Susan, and Mike went off to play fluffy games. And Doug, Jon, and myself played Outpost. Mmm, I like this game a little better than Zepter because of its Science Fiction theme. Three people is not a bad number. Everything seemed to be balanced. However, the dice did cause one unique thing to happen. Neither scientists nor laboratories came out until the end of the second phase. Which was sad. I wanted to build some new chemicals. When the scientists/labs did come out, they were hotly fought after. The 40 dollar scientist went for 75+ dollars! And I didn’t get either of them. In the next round, they both came out again (being the last cards of phase two). This time, I didn’t bother going after them. The game would be over soon and I needed to save up for the big guns. I bought a planetary cruiser for the first round, and a moon base for the second round. Unfortunately, I was only at 73 victory points. So the game didn’t end yet. It lasted one more round. I let Doug and Jon fight over the last cards since I was so far ahead of them. I didn’t want to king make second place.

I took a pie making class at Central Market last week and I just had to try making another one. It came out pretty well if I do say so myself. Mmmm, pie…

Antiquity

Ed wanted to play Brass. I certainly wanted to play it again. But Jon was up for a game of Antiquity and I just had to play that!

Once again I chose to go for Santa Maria. I don’t know what it is about this game for me, but I always choose to go for the easier saint. Tom was new to this game and he did well. He didn’t die, he didn’t run out of wood, and he was going along. I stored food early in this game. Which was good. It kept me from having to take graves (both Jon and Tom were taking graves). The only problem was that I wasn’t producing wood quick enough. It limited me towards the end of the game. But I still won though.

Catan Dice Game

Next, we tried the new Settler’s dice game while we waited for the other tables to finish up. It was okay for a dice game. Even though the dice were certainly hosing me this game, I didn’t finish too far behind everyone.

Through The Ages

We finished off the night with Through the Ages. Strangely enough, we noticed that we got a rule wrong. You are supposed to discard two yellow tokens at the end of an era (previously, we were only discarding one). This makes the game a little harder.

In this game, I ignored my army completely. Which you shouldn’t do because it paints a huge target on your back. But I got lucky. I wasn’t attacked during the first and second eras. However, I noticed that Tom was getting quite aggressive. His army was huge. My spidey sense was tingling rather fiercely. So I took and played Ghandi as a leader. This forestalled a war that he was planing to use on me because he didn’t have enough red tokens. Both Jon and I could see that the game would end soon. I could only hope that my large difference in scoring would keep me ahead of Tom at the end. On the last turn, Tom was finally able to declare war on me. I could only get the difference between our armies to be thirty points. This gave Tom a good delta on me. But it wasn’t enough. I still finished ahead of him for the win.

Tom did get rather pissed off at Jon and I though for noticing how many cards were left. We do consider that to be public knowledge. However he thought it should be a surprise. Different game groups have different styles, I guess.