{"id":627,"date":"2006-11-09T22:03:24","date_gmt":"2006-11-09T22:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hamzy.net\/blog2\/?p=627"},"modified":"2006-11-09T22:03:24","modified_gmt":"2006-11-09T22:03:24","slug":"bggcon_thursday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hamzy.net\/blog2\/?p=627","title":{"rendered":"BGG.CON: Thursday"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\"Big<\/img>\n<\/div>\n

\nJon and I drove up to Dallas this morning at 7 am. We stopped at Rudy’s for
\nsome breakfast tacos and geeked out on the ride up. We arrived in Dallas at
\n10:30. So we wandered around town for a bit. Wouldn’t this make a great
\nspot for a game of Big City?\n<\/p>\n

\n\"Plaza<\/img>\n<\/div>\n

\nThere it is, the Plaza of the Americas! The building that holds the convention.
\nIt is a pretty nice architecture. A giant enclosed area gives a feeling of
\nspaciousness. See the skyway that allows travel from the Adam’s Mark to the
\nPlaza? Who needs to go out in the real world now?\n<\/p>\n

\n\"Enterance\"<\/img>\n<\/div>\n

\nHere it is…the tunnel into goodness…\n<\/p>\n

\n\"Red<\/img>\n<\/div>\n
\n\"Red<\/img>\n<\/div>\n

\nThe Red Prize tables\n<\/p>\n

\n\"Blue<\/img>\n<\/div>\n

\nThe Blue Prize table\n<\/p>\n

\n\"badges\"<\/img>\n<\/div>\n

\nBadges\n<\/p>\n

\n\"people<\/img>\n<\/div>\n

\nPeople are playing before the registration even…\n<\/p>\n

\n\"Space<\/img>\n<\/div>\n

\nOooo… Space Dealer…\n<\/p>\n

\n\"Essen<\/img>\n<\/div>\n

\nNew games from Essen (front)\n<\/p>\n

\n\"Essen<\/img>\n<\/div>\n

\nNew games from Essen (back)\n<\/p>\n

\n\"Library\"<\/img>\n<\/div>\n

\nThe game library is in a new and bigger room.\n<\/p>\n

\n\"Big<\/img>\n<\/div>\n

\nThe rare game, Big Boss, is sitting there in shrink!\n<\/p>\n

\n\"Age<\/img>\n<\/div>\n

\nAnd Age of Renaissance is there also in shrink!\n<\/p>\n

\n\"Game<\/img>\n<\/div>\n

\nSpace Dealer<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nThis is one of the new Eggert-Spiele games that I have been dying to try.
\nIt is a 30 minute game with two one-minute sandtimers that perform actions
\nfor you. You use them to produce goods, move your ship to transport goods
\nto other player’s locations (dropping them off for victory points), building
\non to your space station, research new technology, or mining goods (generally
\ncausing modules to function). Each card that you build has a one-time demand
\nof goods. When the matching goods are delivered by another person, they place
\ntheir marker on your building and they will score victory points. Usually,
\nyou score lesser victory points as well. So it is in your best interest to
\nbuild building cards to lure people to your space station. One thing to keep
\nin mind is that the modules must be powered in order to function. So, it is
\ncritical to upgrade your generators from level 1 (powering two spots) to
\nlevel 3 (powering four spots). Ships move around a round track which also
\nserves as the score track. There is each of the individual player’s planet
\nseperated by a neutral planet. For example, to move to my right hand player’s
\nspace station, I need to spend one action to move right and arrive at a
\nneutral planet, spend another action to move to the next planet. Then, you
\ncan drop off the goods to fufill victory points. It costs you nothing to
\nteleport back to your home planet, but you loose any undelivered goods.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe game is short, tense, and deviod of waiting on other people to
\ncalculate their turns. You spend most of your short downtime planning
\nfuture moves. And you definately want to keep track on what other people
\nare mining to see if they can deliver their goods before you can.\n<\/p>\n

\nThis game is off to a great start. Now will it be a lasting game and
\nhave enough staying power to keep it fresh and interesting? Only the sands
\nof time will tell…\n<\/p>\n

\n\"Game<\/img>\n<\/div>\n

\nGreen Town<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nMike brought us another new Essen game to try. One made by the Bambus
\nSpieleverlag company. I definately recognized the green box from an
\nearlier game of theirs: Kanaloa.
\nIt billed itself as a 45-60 minute game. The rules were not that difficult
\nto figure out from the translation (there was one hiccup of determining the
\norder of player actions).
\nThis game is about performing tours of the country side for victory points.
\nYou are either building up the country side or holding a tour. At the start
\nof the game you can choose one of four actions: 1) tour, 2) build,
\n3) build OR tour, 4) build AND tour. Once you have performed an action,
\nyou flip that marker face down (taking it out of your possible choices), and
\nplay passes to the left. When the last player has played, they move a
\n“x2” marker to the person on their right and perform one extra turn. This
\nprocess continues until everyone uses all of their actions. Then, the actions
\nare flipped back to face up and everything repeats.
\nPlayers have one tour card in front of them. This is the goal that they are
\ntrying to fulfil. It has the length of the hex spots that must be crossed
\nand the numbers of things that people want to see. These can be nature areas (trees),
\nculture spots (houses), sports locations (circles), and\/or shopping locations
\n(cubes). The cards also tell you the minimum and maximum possible numbers
\nof each of spots. For example, you might have to perform a tour over nine
\nhexes that must visit at least one nature area (with a maximum of three),
\ntwo culture spots, one sports location (with a maximum of two), and one
\nshopping area (with a maximum of three). For each of your own buildings and
\nnature areas that you visit, you get a buck (a victory point). Other people’s
\nbuilding pay the corresponding person. And if you do not meet the critera
\nof the tour, you loose dollars for each thing that was missed.
\nThis game was simple in concept. But our group turned it into a real brain
\nburner. The game lasted two hours and thirty minutes! It was rather difficult
\ntrying to figure out valid tour paths. The length of the tour was what was
\nkilling us. It is hard to find a tour that travels exactly<\/b> nine
\nhexes and fufils the conditions.\n<\/p>\n

\n\"Game<\/img>\n<\/div>\n

\nIliad<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nMike Chapel succumbed to call of new, shrink-wrapped games and bought one.
\nIt was Iliad. Which was a card game about battles. What was amusing was
\nthat Mike couldn’t handle the continued use of the term “her” where you
\nwould normally use the sexist “his”.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe army cards represent units. And the units follow rock\/paper\/scissors
\nlike rules. For example, the Archer defeats Chariots and Hoplites.
\nBallista defeat Chariots and Elephants. Chariots defeat Archers and Hoplites.
\nHoplites can form phalanxes where their total is the sum of the points times
\nthe number of cards.\n<\/p>\n

\nThere are two types of rounds: Thanatos or Gorgons. For Thanatos rounds,
\neveryone plays cards until they pass. When you pass, you get the highest
\nranking hero (from 4 down to 1). The person with the most units left on
\nthe board (plus the hero) gets their choice of one of two victory cards.
\nThe second place person gets the other. And the person who had the least
\nnumber will get the Thanatos card which contains a negative victory point
\nnumber. A Gorgon round is quicker in that, at the start of a person’s turn,
\nif they have the highest army, then they immediately win. They get one
\nvictory card and the battle is over.\n<\/p>\n

\nFor our first Gorgon round, Jon essentially played a spoiler. I started out
\nwith a hariot (a wall that stops chariots and has 0 value). Paul dropped out.
\nMike played an elephant (x2 multiplier). Jon played an elephant. I played
\na hoplite (valued 4). Mike played a hoplite on the elephant valued 3 (x2 = 6).
\nJon put an archer on his elephant. Now it comes to my turn. If I play a
\n2 valued hoplite (4+3×2 = 6), then Mike will likely play another hoplite
\non his elephant. Jon does something. I would go for more hoplites to get
\nmy multiplier greater than Mike but then Jon would have no choice to use
\nthat archer to stop me. This would give the victory to Mike since Jon’s
\narmy value is so low. So, instead, I dropped out and gave the battle to
\nMike. Sigh.\n<\/p>\n

\n\"Game<\/img>\n<\/div>\n

\nTichu<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nWe had 30 minutes to kill before we had to go and play the ultimate meaty
\ngame of Texas De Brazil<\/a>. So, Jon and myself taught newbies jridpath and John
\nPastor the ultimate partner game of trick taking — Tichu. After explaining
\nthe rules we played a couple of hands. The first hand was an uninteresting 50\/50. But
\non the second hand, in my first eight cards were two aces and the Dragon. So
\nI called Grand Tichu. In the next six were the Phoenix and my partner passed
\nme another Ace. Of course, the other team passed me the Dog. I had no trouble
\nmaking that hand. Hopefully, we planted the seed of Tichu in two new people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jon and I drove up to Dallas this morning at 7 am. We stopped at Rudy’s for some breakfast tacos and geeked out on the ride up. We arrived in Dallas at 10:30. So we wandered around town for a bit. Wouldn’t this make a great spot for a game of Big City? There it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bgg-con-2006"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hamzy.net\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hamzy.net\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hamzy.net\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hamzy.net\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hamzy.net\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.hamzy.net\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hamzy.net\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hamzy.net\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hamzy.net\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}