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.

Call My Bluff

Gamers abhor standing around. So a quick filler game was brought to the table. I like this game. Especially when there are abnormal rolls. For example, on four dice, I rolled all stars. So I put the bid on 4 stars even though the odds said that it was likely that there was another one out there. I was called and it turned out that there were 6 out there. The picture shows another unlikely occurrence. Everyone rolled a five or a star! When it was stated that 5 of the six dice were fives, someone naturally called it. And lost!

Imperial

Next up on the table was Imperial. This time we finally used the advanced start rules where there is a once around process where you buy shares in a country. I definitely like that version better. But this game still needs another tweak. You should be able to buy shares in a country when that country is done with its turn. It just takes too long for the investor marker to make its way around to you. I had money in my pocket that was just not utilized. Especially when Adam ended the game just before I was able to improve the multiplier in my country.

Lost Valley

Next up on the table was Lost Valley. And I definitely wanted to play it. It has been a while since I last played it. This time, I decided to buy a boat and a sieve and run along the river while exploring for river-gold. Sadly, I didn’t find that much of it. I was able to get ten chips for a total of 12 gold. And at that point I had a decision to make. I could end the game, but it was likely that Curt had more gold than I did. I would be playing for second place. So I decided against that and decided to start mining some mountain-gold. My river exploration had turned up a nice pile of it at the end of the river.

But the game turned into a version that I really hate. And that is the fact that you cannot complete getting victory points in one operation. You must first open up a mine. And then spend actions to mine the gold. However, other people can take advantage of the work that you did to mine the gold on their turn. Due to the load of supplies that I was carrying, I could not open a mine and then mine for gold immediately. If I opened the mine, then Curt and Adam could mine out all of the gold before I would be able to get some.

It turned into a Mexican standoff. Unfortunately, Curt was in the lead at this point and I needed Curt to open up the mine first. It was in Curt’s best interest to just wait. But eventually he succumbed and went off to start a mine. Adam chased after him and I was able to start another one myself.

And at the end of the game, the score was close. I had scored 18 gold and Curt and Adam scored 17!

When John and I drove home, we came across an accident that had still not cleared after 6 hours! Apparently the rain had caused an 18-wheeler to run up the side of an overpass.

My Adam Spielt order finally arrived from Germany. It was shipped out on 12/08 and arrived on 1/12. Five weeks is longer than average for them. I guess the various postal carriers took a lot of holidays during that time.

But the disincentive to order from them is building. Most of the German games are coming out quicker than ever here in the states. Yspahan, Imperial, and Space Dealor were all orderable from U.S. before my games arrived. But perhaps the biggest problem is the dollar is falling against the Euro. The conversion rate was 1.3626320196645147348802031279544. Ouch!